This blog post comes to you from our project playwright Violet Thomson.
So, where to begin? With many aspects of this huge Circle T project now underway it is almost time for the part that I am mainly involved in, ergo writting the script, to begin. The script will be written in conjuction with young people from all over Europe; Droichead Youth Theatre, A group with Varszatonvina and a group with Challedu. Many of you reading may be wondering how that is done. How to get three different groups, in three different languages, working at three different times to write one play? Easy, you give them ideas that spark ideas.
It is never my aim when writing with groups of young people to play dictator. I never want to control who the characters are, or where their story is going, or what the show is about. However, it is often helpful to start with a style, a form, an aesthetic, a device or a vibe. Instead of walking into a workshop and saying “Hey young people write me a play”, it can be more helpful to ask “can anyone think of a good idea for a play about X?” The ideas for the principal workshops will work as walls for them to throw their ideas at. Down the line, this will make it easier to frame them in one big story. So, what are these ideas?
Circle T is a huge multiple project endevour to try and inject European Theatre with a knowledge of, thirst for and necesscary training to make all our work more sustainable. For me this play has to be about sustainablity in someway, it has to be able to be performed and staged sustainably, but it also has to be hopeful and fun. Otherwise, why would anyone want to be involved? Now, what genre is about sustainablity, hope to towards a greener future and would be really fun to explore? Why SolarPunk of course!!
SolarPunk is an emerging sci-fi subgenre that is focused on a future in which we are succesfully using technology to tackle the problems of climate change and living sustainably. An off shoot of the better known CyberPunk genre, SolarPunk eskews the doom, misery and pessimism of it’s progenitor and chooses to embrace radical optimism. Instead of an industrialised, corporatised neon urban hellscape where we still have all of the same social issues and problems of modern life, what if we imagine a world where we are solving theses problems? A world with gender equality, racial justice and technology that exists in harmony with nature. A world of solar panels, green trees, wind turbines, fresh water, wild life, automated farming and a fair politcal system. Let’s spend time focusing on a world we want to live in, that’s possible to live in, rather that a world we all want to avoid.
Circle T is a project taking place across Europe with multiple organisations and people from all sorts of different culture backgrounds. What is an idea that can incorporate all that diversity while still being true to one narrative? Well, my idea is to play with Gods and Monsters. Every culture has some variety of Gods and Monsters in their mythology and they always tell us something about the culture that they come from. We can use the mythology of all our different background to interrogate the future we are setting our stories in. Hey, why not invent our own Gods and Monsters while we are at it? I am particularly taken with the idea of the Kami from Japanese Shintoism. These little Gods can represent and occupy every tree rock and patch of grass and act as a representation of them. What would a Kami living is a solar panel be like? What does a solar panel have to tell us?
And so, these are the ideas I am arming myself with as we rapidly approach our first work shops. Keep checking our blog to see how these ideas fair when interrogated by the active and vital imaginations of our young theatre makers. I cannot wait to see what they are going to come up with and what I am going to learn from them. If we are lucky, hopefully we will get some blog entries from them too.