Making post capitalist theatre...

(one small step at a time)

Photo by Kate Remmer on Unsplash

There was 12 of us on Friday night. It felt like a good number.

“A group of us, meeting as friends, because we want to change the world”, was how Queen Jesus puts it, and that’s appropriate because that’s what we were there to do.

To spend “An hour with Queen Jesus”.

Me included, because although I wrote “The Gospel According To Jesus Queen of Heaven” back in 2009 and have performed her I really don’t know how many times since, this was about meeting and becoming her in a different way for the very first time.

Different because the other two members of the Queen Jesus company, who I dearly love, have things happening in their lives which mean we can’t make the performance we normally make…

Different because theatre everywhere is in such a lamentable state it’s becoming harder and harder to work in it the way we’ve worked before…

And different because everything is changing so rapidly there’s not a lot of sense in just carrying on in the ways we have before.

We have to be creative. We have to do things differently.

So what does it mean, to spend “An Hour With Queen Jesus”?

That’s what we were about to discover.

“Doors open at 6”, the invitation said, and almost everyone misunderstood and turned up at 6.00 even though the performance wasn’t due to start till 6.30, and it was a good mistake because it meant we could all meet each other share wine or juice or whatever and get to know each other a little bit.

About 6.25 I went to the little sanctuary and lit the two big candles and the floating tea lights and laid out the prayer bell next to the bread and the wine…

And at 6.30 everyone came in and we began.

I wanted to begin by talking about what Jesus meant to me when I was a child, because that is where the text came from, and that is where most of our feelings about religion come from, for good or for ill…

…and I loved having the little prayer bell because I could sound it and then launch right into the text, as Queen Jesus.

I spoke of the queer person who the Gospels tell us guided the disciples to the upper room for the Last Supper, and I preached the sermon, and told the story of how our Mother said “Let there be light” and created the world.

There isn’t time to tell all the stories because of how I talk about being a child and because I want there to be more moments of shared silence where we can reflect together on what we’ve all just heard.

And anyway it was a bit complicated because two members of the audience told me at the beginning that because of the muddle about when things actually began they were going to have to leave early to go to the ballet.

And I rearranged the order of things because I wanted them to listen to the crucifixion and share in the bread and the wine and then be blessed before going….

And then I put in an extra story for everyone else at the end.

And although in a way it meant I was doing things “in the wrong order”, and it was certainly not the order I was expecting to do them in, it was on another level exactly the right order…

because I learnt a kind of freedom in the form I hadn’t experienced before, a freedom to improvise.

And also a helpful constriction of form, because I ended it for them exactly when I intended to.

And it seemed to work for them, because afterwards they wrote:”It was outstanding” and “So grateful that Jo adjusted the timing for us but it meant we didn’t have time to process it.”

Well that made me think how clever I was to build in a time for people to come together in the end.

It’s what’s normally called a “post show discussion” and actually turned out to be a beautiful gathering. And an essential one, too.

We all sat in a circle and drank things and nibbled things and each took a turn sharing what that experience meant to us.

And how lovely was that…

And I drafted this in the early hours of Saturday morning, still feeling happy from the afterglow.

I hope I can do it all again soon, because we seem to have discovered something.

An event that works for people who haven’t seen the play before

(as a kind of trailer)

And also an event for people who have seen the play before and want to deepen their experience

(as a kind of sequel)

And also for those who just want to spend a pleasant and interesting evening

(because it’s that too).

And from what people said it was all of those things.

And it can happen anywhere.

All it needs is a person or persons who are prepared to host it, a nice space to happen in, and gluten free bread, and alcohol free wine, and some refreshments afterwards.

And a couple of candles would be nice also.

And here’s me, pausing a moment, feeling excited because I think:

“I could do my Sister Death like this too”.

And I’m thinking of my hero Lorca, and how he said:

“People need theatre like they need bread”.

And how in this nightmarish situation the theatre industry finds itself we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced.

Instead, we have to find a different way of doing things.

And, I suspect, different values too.

People always say that theatre arrises out of conflict, but I’ve never really agreed.

Because a theatre of conflict just reflects a competitive capitalist society based on conflict.

And we know capitalism is breaking down because it no longer serves the needs of either humanity or the world.

And in almost every aspect of life we have to find a different way of doing things.

And under the surface, many millions of us in fact are.

For years I have said:

I want to create a theatre of the world. O teatro do mundo. A post capitalist theatre.

And I am.

And I know what to call it now.

It’s not a theatre based on conflict.

It’s a theatre based on love.