2011 has seen an abundance of productions start, continue and end their theatrical journeys. There have been shows that have received a facelift, with a new cast heading for a different venue (One Man, Two Guvnors for example – read our review here). Across the country, fringe theatre has responded to the social climate and added context to existing plays as with the Lyric Hammersmith’s production of Edward Bond’s Saved (read our article about the show here and our review here). In doing so, new benchmarks for theatre in 2012 may well have been set.

One of the most prominent and admirable ventures this year was the Old Vic 24 Hour Plays. 2011 marked the project’s eighth anniversary as 31 actors, seven directors, seven producers and seven writers worked through the night and following day to create seven short plays all written, learnt, directed and produced in just 24 hours. This challenge culminated in a unique evening of performance on the Old Vic’s celebrated stage (see what we thought here or relive the experience vicariously with our Editor’s live blog). Sat at home, we can only imagine the dedication of these intense theatre-makers. It indicates, however, the wealth of achievement to be found elsewhere during 2011.

Following a sell-out season at the Courtyard Theatre, the Cambridge Theatre hosted the West End transfer of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical. 2011 has seen much debate concerning innovative musicals and those adapted from a film or novel. Despite this, Matilda The Musicalwas nominated for a total of nine WhatsOnStage Awards and its booking period has been extended until October 2012 (read our verdict here). Yet the recipe for theatrical success is still unclear and adaptation does not automatically make for great theatre: @SusanElkinJourn found her least favourite theatrical experience of 2011 to be “Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales at Lyric Hammersmith and the best being Matilda. Odd that they’re linked by Dahl” (see what Editor Jake Orr thought of Twisted Tales here). The Royal Shakespeare Company was also supported by @leenahassan‘s appreciation of their revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. She additionally tweeted support for Shakespeare’s Richard III and Edward Hall’s Comedy of Errors at the National Theatre. @TimSim85 and A Younger Theatre’s Editor @jakeyoh loved One Man, Two Guvnors, with @Audreydirector also advocating London Road, which were both performed at the National Theatre. Despite some resistance to As You Like It, the National Theatre produced the goods through alternative productions. For both @AmeliaHockey and @LaurenCaddick, Frankenstein was a clear favourite – “just brilliant”.

Additional Twitter responses to the theatre highs and lows of 2011 focused less on commercial and mainstream productions, instead with a view to support the well-known in ‘smaller’ venues and debuting productions. A Younger Theatre’s Web Editor @eleanorturney tweeted for Richard II, and @Cpt_Shortbread’s best was Cinderella, both of which played at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, whereas @Cpt_Shortbread’s worst was “perhaps Evita at Bath”. A multitude of Shakespeare productions – aside from the success of the Royal Shakespeare Company – received much praise. @John_murphy1 and @millingtonbell both saw Othello at the Sheffield Crucible, with @millingtonbell also praising the German Hamlet production at the Barbican Centre. @PascaleKasirabo thought As You Like It at the Rose Theatre in Kingston “was thrilling… a splendid job!” Conversely, Twelfth Night at the National Theatre was the “driest production of Shakespeare ever!” to @roseannanna. The Barbican Centre’s programming won support through Lullaby, which turned the Pit into a communal bedroom for the audience, with @johnhunter calling it “snoozily brilliant!”

The best theatre of 2011 was incredibly diverse and to be found up and down the country, not just in London. Yet we see mixed responses to various Clockwork Orange productions across the UK: @teddyfizz felt the “worst Clockwork Orange” was the version at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, whereas for @PascaleKasirabo, the Volcano Theatre Company’s version at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury was “pretty impressive. Acting, Staging and script!” He consequently saw the show numerous times and always “left the theatre with a smile”.

There was much positivity elsewhere on Twitter for Bound by Bear Trap Theatre. The company has won numerous awards preceding their upcoming tour of the production throughout 2012. Put simply by @LondonFarmBoy, “my favourite play of the year has to be Bound [at the Southwark Playhouse]… moved me like no other”. The Young Company at the Southwark Playhouse, @YoCoSwkPlay, also loved Bound from this multi-award-winning international touring company. Bear Trap Theatre was copiously praised by Lyn Gardner in The Guardian online following their performance at the Edinburgh Festival 2010, indicating the abundant talent of the festival  through their approach to simplistic theatre. As a result of their success within 2010, Bear Trap Theatre made their way into Top 10 plays of 2011, including that compiled by The Spectator. @tessagillett tweeted her best theatre of 2011, naming “Bound by Bear Trap Theatre…and Fela! – Totally different but both totally brilliant”. Here, the sheer contrast between favoured productions indicates the diverse range that have won audiences’ hearts throughout 2011.

Not all productions that premiered in fringe venues were received positively however. Whilst @EveNicol and @teddyfizz placed Tender Napalm first along with Happy Days in the Art World, the worst @EveNicol  saw “was fringe stuff I’d feel terrible naming and shaming”. By its very nature, fringe theatre is the ideal birthing ground for both the incredible and the dire. For example, @sundancemckid felt The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart “was the only halfway memorable play I saw this year”. For Editor @jakeyoh, “thinking of worst…I’d rather not name. Mostly fringe work”.

Away from the mainstream, fringe theatre and festival productions have gone on to great heights from original incarnations, but many have also flopped following the unique starting opportunities provided by fringe springboards. With the alternative view of fringe as a platform for new and innovative work to be performed, can fringe work be placed under such scrutiny in a predominantly test-tube environment? However, without criticisms and critics alike, there may be no hope to develop fringe theatre further in 2012.

With the good, the bad and the downright ridiculous highs and lows from 2011, 2012 is sure to have a whole host of theatrical extravaganzas in store for us. Happy New Year!

Image credit: bayasaa

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Theatre-Rites’ Mojo is a fusion of live music from around the world with skilled and illuminating puppetry. What starts as a rhythm and beat-busting musical experience evolves into a simple narrative of a girl growing up from baby to teenager. This girl morphs from shapes and lines that float in the darkness, expertly manipulated by blacked-out puppeteers. A baby takes shape and moves about the darkness, floating lightly before playfully swinging from a pole. As Mojo progresses, we see this baby girl grow from manipulated shapes to steadily growing puppets, until the final moments where a stroppy teenager in a mini skirt and sunglasses floats about the Silk Theatre stage at The Barbican Centre.

Mojo is very much a piece about coming of age, presented in glorious techni-colour of the luminous variety, and an ever-changing melody of music from the skillful musician and performer Adriano Adewale. It’s a piece of family entertainment that happily bobs along, morphing from images and chereographed instances, to charming puppetry and song. Slightly surprising perhaps is the lack of spoken word throughout, aside from a few hinting lyrics that pepper the production with a flavour of what the young girl is feeling or experiencing. It’s a piece that drifts by, and the 80 minutes running time disappears before you know it.

Whilst Theatre-Rites have created a cacophony of images that the eye can feast upon there is a distinct quality that is missing from Mojo, one that I can’t help but fee that Sue Buckmaster’s production has kept from me: Fun. Mojo is a family piece that is meant to have you dancing in the aisles, whilst steadily being transfixed by the magical transformation on the stage. Yet Mojo seems a sober affair, and this is partly to do with how far removed the audience feels from the action. Either the Barbican’s Silk Street theatre is a too bigger space, or the puppetry and action are just too small. At the end the cast spill out into the auditorium and we can momentarily rejoice in the music and fun of the production, but it’s such a shame that it took nearly 70 minutes to do so and is so short lived.

There is however some magical moments and charming puppetry to be enjoyed throughout. The cast are playful and skilled, bringing out Arthur Pita’s chereography and Michael Fawkes puppetry wonderously. Adewale’s music with co-composer Leo Altarelli keeps the rhythm going through Mojo, and never ceases to bring delight from a new instrument. Whilst these elements work together well, the overall feeling of neglected fun from the production left me somewhat joyless when all I wanted was to really get into the spirit of the piece.

Theatre-Rites offers plenty of encouragement for a piece of visual theatre that will keep children amused, but it really lacks the tickling feeling that makes any child burst into giggles and spontaneous dancing. There are, however, some downright clever magic tricks that will make you “ooo” a little, even if your feet aren’t tapping at the end. Plenty of promise, and so nearly there… but just falls at the last moment. A slightly funless production.

Mojo is playing at The Silk Street Theatre at The Barbican Centre until 31 December. For more information and to book tickets, see The Barbican Theatre’s website.

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If theatre is a live product then Thomas Ostermeier’s Hamlet is a wake-up call to British directors who continually present the undead of theatre – the sort of theatre that merely plays before its audience, offering a slice of ‘British dramatic life’ in two hours. The audience relax in the darkness of the auditorium and the actors build their fourth walls and the director sits smugly at the back thinking “Yes, yes, this is theatre”. Ostermeier’s Hamlet tears apart Shakespeare’s tragic tale of the Prince of Denmark’s sad descent into madness, and presents a dirty, blood-spurting and heart-pounding live theatrical experience, where neither actor nor audience can escape the clutches of the direction. Directors take note: this is the theatre we need.

First presented in 2008 at the Schaubuhne in Berlin where Ostermeier is Artistic Director, this Hamlet has since traveled the world wrecking havoc along the way. Lars Eidinger as Hamlet is crazed from the opening line. Eidinger knows no boundaries and Ostermeier pushes him, breaking apart any centric point of the character, removing his soliloquies and tenderness, and instead presenting a figure that we as the audience rejoice in mocking. The end result is a Hamlet that mocks Shakespeare and mocks his audience.

This is not a Hamlet to take seriously, which Ostermeier makes all too clear. As the characters say goodbye to the dead king, a grave digger drops the coffin into its grave, straddling it into position, and thrusts dirt upon it. The funeral morphs into the wedding, and the dirt from the grave becomes the food of the feast. Visually striking and continually challenging, Ostermeier does away with much of the narrative-heavy dialogue, and opts for a literal explanation of scenes. Ostermeier throughout interjects snippets of contemporary language, English song, and even drags the action from the stage into the auditorium, with the cast directing questions at the audience – challenging responses. Look they say, look at us watching, what an audience we are.

Hamlet is relentless. Ostermeier takes this famous text and thrust it onto the stage. He forges a prince who is more of an animal than a man, and a supporting cast who are like the freaks at the circus. Video projection is interlaced with Jan Pappelbaum’s dirt-covered stage design. What becomes clever is Pappelbaum’s use of a curtain that helps to continually reflect Ostermeier’s questioning of actor/audience/play relationship. There is a point where Eidinger interjects across dialogue to announce that he “must now give a monologue”, before stepping forwards and beginning the famous “to be or not to be” speech. The conventions of theatre are stripped away, and as the Players present to Claudius a play, there is much mockery of theatre as an art, as a device and with it the audience itself. With an air of playfulness, Ostermeier’s Hamlet continually allows his cast to react, respond and confront its audience, turning a play into more than just a presentation, but an engagement.

You would think that with a Hamlet so torn apart and spat out, that much of the emotional journey that Hamlet, Ophelia, and indeed Claudius go through would be dispelled, yet this isn’t the case. There comes a point where Ostermeier switches the attention from merely playing to being. Eidinger’s Hamlet becomes internal, Judith Rosmair’s Ophelia becomes physically an imploding mass of words and jerked movements, and Urs Jucker’s Claudius is questioning truthfully. This sudden clarity acts as a hook for its audience, so that by the end, where characters don’t die, but float and foam at the mouth, it is not so much a laughing affair, but a saddening, silenced audience that watch.

This Hamlet is one that does away with the complexities of language. It presents a visual spectacle, an improvised and feverish story that heightens the dramatic impact of the production. Ostermeier taunts his audience. He takes us with him into exploring the world of Hamlet, the tarnished, fickle and unlovable rogue. It is a Hamlet that reaches out and demands that you take notice, but there’s also a distinction between those directors who dare to question our classics, and those who merely reproduce dead pieces. In this instance, I’d take Ostermeier’s live Hamlet than any other attempted version. This is what an audience needs – a living, breathing piece of theatre.

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Last night, as part of OMA / Progress and The Barbican Centre exhibition, I attended a panel discussion relating to architecture, audience and the arts called Designing for the Next Generation: What’s the Future of Arts Venues? Part lecture, part chaired discussion, the focus of the evening was on how architects are working to design arts venues that impact on future generations of audiences (and artists). It wasn’t quite what I would normally find myself at, but the event was brought to my attention by Rob Harris, Director of Arup, a global firm of engineers, designers, planers and project managers, after he had read an article in Auditora Magazine that I had appeared in, discussing the affect a building has upon young people, notably The Royal Opera House, Barbican Centre and Young Vic (read it here).

Harris’s presentation seemed extremely fitting for A Young Theatre, touching upon the consideration that architects must place upon the way in which future audiences (current young people!) will interact with an arts venue. Harris presented several issues which future venues will be affected by and have an impact on. They were: affordability, sustainability, accessibility, interaction, attraction and participation. Each holds a consideration and challenge for an architect who is designing the future cultural buildings we inhabit. Much of the presentation included examples of arts venues across the world that had taken on aspects of the above, each having an impact upon their audience.

It was saddening, but perhaps not surprising, that Harris spoke of the affordability of future buildings, the costs of designing, consulting, and eventually building a venue in the “current economic climate”. He also spoke about venues having to adapt to suit their financial situations, resorting to hiring of spaces for conferences and functions. These hires mean that the venue was worth more for its facilities than its artistic programming. How would future arts venue thus have the versatility to support their artistic work without falling prey to being a conference centre? The trouble is, what with the recent arts funding cuts, notably Arts Council England and local authorities, venues are already having to make this shift. Only yesterday I heard that Barnet’s artsdepot was resorting to hiring out its spaces in the wake of Barnet Council cutting close to £200,000 funding to the building.

It was of course not all doom and gloom for venues. There was also promise and hope about the way in which buildings will function to allow young people to see them as a place to visit. Harris spoke of the need for venues to become social meeting points, and consequently offer what young people expect (because it is becoming increasingly common) from a venue: free wifi and free Fair Trade coffee with a relaxed and friendy environment. The idea being that if young people wish to meet socially in the venue, they might be encouraged to see the artistic work, too. This, as I mention in Auditoria Magazine, is similar to my opinions of the Young Vic; the bar is the central focus of the building, where actors, directors, technicians and audiences alike rub shoulders as they navigate around the venue. The stage door is the same as the entrance for the audience.

Yet this need for social integration is also about the need for future venues to allow a future audience to interact with them. We’re not talking about social media in marketing as a form of interaction, but of real physical play. As Harris suggested, young audiences want to be able to control their experience. With the ubiquitousness of smartphones and computers, young people want to experience “before they have left home, to continue whilst they are in the space and also after they have left”. It’s not just about scanning codes and tweeting, it’s also about the physical pushing of boundaries and walls, to shape and curate a venue – or as Harris put it “to mess it up”.

At this point I thought Hide&Seek’s Sandpit events at the Southbank Centre, encouraging adults to play games within the venue. Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director of the Barbican Centre, later referred to the Barbican’s exploration of performances in its foyer spaces, allowing the building to develop beyond its originally defined spaces. A venue’s structure can be tested and challenged, it can be interacted with beyond its original confines. This interaction is key to how architects should see, or at least question, how they design their venues in the future.

Going back to Harris’s other considerations, he spoke about sustainability – both in an environmental sense and a finanicial sense. Venues are now incorporating far better environmentally sound instruments and technologies, with older buildings playing catch up. Harris gave an example of a gallery (apologies as I forgot to take the name) taking environmental concerns ahead of customer comforts, the heating being cooler and thus less fuel wasting, but less warming for the art goer. In this instance, a simple jumper has be worn to stay comfortable, a short price to pay for a more environmentally friendly building.

Another suggestion from Harris was that sustainability might see arts venues incorporating high street shops, making a commercial investment that sees a new audience drawn into a venue for its other functions than just its artistic merit. Although, as Harris commented, we have to be careful that the artistic programming does not become the “theatre of a high street”, where you “don’t need to worry about seeing a show because you know it will be back the following year, being able to guess the artistic programming”. There is a wider consideration to be made here: what about multidisciplinary venues, such as the Barbican, that become a hub of activity beyond just artistic programming. Should we do away with arts venues altogether and instead install artistic structures/spaces within shopping centres and car parks? This leads into the use of found spaces and temporary structures that has become increasingly common. Kenyon noted You Me Bum Bum Train last year taking over a disused building because the work couldn’t fit into the Barbican, but the artistic vision was worth pursuing. These developments of older buildings, rethinking our ideas towards a performative space, draw audiences to new areas and feats of exploration within a building that they have not experienced before. You would hope that this would add a layer of understanding or at least possibility for audiences who might be willing to look at traditional building-based facilities in a new light.

There was a general tension within the discussions about the balance between creating arts venues that cater to the artist, and those that took more traditional routes of stage, seats and boundaries – especially from Nicholas Payne, Director of Opera Europe with his work on transforming the Coliseum and Royal Opera House. What do artists really want when creating work in a venue? As one audience member noted there is a need for a blank canvas to project ideas onto, whilst there was also an argument for a confined structure to impose the artist’s work into. The answer is that we need both, but I can understand the desire to have artistic practitioners exploring the process of designing a venue of the future with an architect.

As a whole, the topic of designing future arts venues could have been discussed more in a day’s conference than the brief few hours it was given. The depth of consideration that goes into planning and formulating a venue has epic proportions, most of which I didn’t quite realise. There were some interesting points raised by Liaz Foir, Co-Founder of MUF Architects, on the community impact a venue has; how it forms and shapes the local area. Arts venues should reflect our society and values, they should reverberate through our communities and, if done well, should offer a place of play and learning from a young age.

It is my own belief that venues and theatres as a whole have a long way to go before they can be seen as a place that young people happily gravitate towards. There is an intrinsic barrier that needs to be displaced, and this is as much about the programming as it is about the design of a building. Until we do away with the boundaries and allow a sense of openness that allows young people and audiences to feel intimately connected to the work on our stages, we will increasingly discourage younger audiences. Harris made a statement which seemed to resonate with me afterwards, that those older audiences that grace some of our nation’s top venues have to be replaced for venues to survive, the question is: are our venues being designed and programmed to encourage the next generation? I guess we’ll have to wait and see (or encourage younger archetects to develop new practices for designing future art venues).

The OMA/Progress Exhibition continues until 19 February 2012. For more events and information see the Barbican Centre website. Image by Julio Albarran

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