What is Theatre?

Last weekend I was part of a group of Applied Theatre facilitators who had been helping lead-facilitator, Becky Proudfoot, create a performance with a group of women from Bethune House. Bethune house is a charity based organisation run through the Mission for Migrant Worker's Hong Kong.

Bethune House itself provides shelter, legal advice, support and care to domestic helpers in Hong Kong who have been subjected to exploitation and abuse. The performance we created together was firstly to raise awareness of the situation facing Bethune House as they are being forced to vacate their location, leaving the women with nowhere to go. The performance was a charity event with all proceeds being donated to Bethune House. Secondly the performance was a way for the women to create something together, to show others their talents and share their feelings.

The piece was called Four Scenes of the World, based on the women's thoughts about the sky, the sea, the city and the home. It was important for the women that they created a piece of theatre that was about something different than the problems and issues they face in everyday life, although some of this came through the work, it was not the focus of it. The women's performance was beautiful and included acted scenes, physical movement, poetry, song and choral speaking. However, my favourite part of the performance was the sense it gave you of community. As drama or theatre based professionals we know performance is about collaboration, but this performance really allowed me to see this element and to understand that these women were each other's support network and family. Pardon the obviousness of this statement, but their performance embodied everything Bethune House seeks to promote.

After being part of the process and watching three audiences come to watch the show I was therefore somewhat surprised, when I asked someone if they'd enjoyed it, to hear the statement (and please excuse my paraphrasing) "I loved it, but, it wasn't theatre was it?" I was most surprised to hear this from someone who is an active member of the Arts scene in Hong Kong and wasn't really sure how to respond, especially after hearing the person in question repeatedly describe their own work as Avant-garde.

It is true that as Applied Theatre practitioners we make use or various arts based texts and mediums, Four Scenes of the World only acts as an example of that, however, I was taken-aback by the idea that what we had created with these women was not theatre at all. I feel so passionately about this point being incorrect that I had to blog about it.

per·for·mance –noun 1.a musical, dramatic, or other entertainment presented before an audience. 2.the act of performing a ceremony, play, piece of music, etc. 3.the execution or accomplishment of work, acts, feats, etc.

Above is the English dictionary definition of performance. I am aware that we are getting into an argument of semantics and definitions as defined by different people. However, I would like make the case for 'theatre' performance being any kind of performance given in-front of an audience. This doesn't even have to be inside a theatre. This doesn't involve having lights, a set-script or even a director. It involves one person watching another.

I think the reason this has affected me so much is because I am of the opinion that to think theatrical performance has to take place in a theatre, with a director reigning supreme over everything is out-dated. I'm sorry but if that is Avant-garde then I think you may have your definition wrong.

a·vant-garde –noun The advance group in any field, especially in the visual,literary, or musical arts, whose work is characterised chiefly by unorthodox and experimental methods.

I'm not saying theatre-created with a director and a script cannot be Avant-garde, but believing that it has to have those things prevalent in the process to be theatre at all sounds like theatre-snobbery to me.

The theatrical performance that I was part of and watched last Sunday was a performance using different performative techniques and came about by devising ideas with a group of people. Maybe this can be defined as Community Theatre or Applied Theatre or whatever genre you want to call it. But surely, that is still a performance type and still has a right to be considered part of the ever growing umbrella of theatre.