TABLA Nº 13 PROPIEDADES FÍSICAS

The introductory chapter referred to the existence of engaged theatre in Northern Ireland during the times of the Troubles. The evolution of engaged theatre during the violent, protracted conflict in Northern

Ireland emerged out of what has been described by scholars as the “fervent activity and cross-fertilisation of amateur drama, political theatre,

community activism and the struggle of the professional theatre sector against government censorship” (Jennings, 2012, pp. 163-164). In essence prior to 1998, “organic interventionary theatres” grounded in working-class communities were defined by the conflict and its immediate aftermath:

56 _{The forum theatre is perhaps the best known and practiced technique forming part of Boal’s Theatre}

of the Oppressed tools (see Boal, 2006, p. 6). It engages “spect-ators” in the analysis of contentious issues by inviting them to become the actors and collectively explore diverse perspectives and formulate alternate responses (ibid.; also Community Dialogue, 2013; also Foy, 2013e; Ross, 2011).

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They were all battlefield theatres, and their styles, contexts, modes of organisation, texts and performance strategies derived from the conditions of the war… They were situated theatres and derived their political authenticity from their relationship to a specific historical reality. (emphasis in original; McDonnell, 2008, p. 213)

As groups were operating without much funding or government support, Jennings observes that this movement’s grass-roots activism along with its participatory and inclusive approaches “represented an independent and critical voice in the clamour for a political resolution of the Troubles” (2012, p. 163). After the Good Friday Agreement, financial support for the

community arts sector became part of the policy-led peacebuilding agenda determined by public bodies at the executive level within Northern Ireland although, as Grant (1993) states, theatre “cannot be expected to fit within

a policy-led agenda like jelly in a mould” (p. 57).57 _{Jennings (2012) reports}

that many theatre-makers still manifest “nostalgia for the ‘glory days’ of community theatre, when government funding was limited and the peace agenda existed in opposition to mainstream discourse” (p. 164).

Playwright Martin Lynch (2004), a key figure in the community theatre movement who came from a politicised republican working-class Belfast family, states that while he is unsure what impact this movement had on political developments in Northern Ireland, he is quite certain that:

The Troubles have had a big impact on us. Some of those active in the last ten years are convinced that the turmoil, the upheaval, the searching of consciences, the unwanted confrontations, the closeness to death and tragedy, the political uncertainty — have acted as a powerful incentive for unusually large numbers of people to look for answers, to go in search of something better than what we have — through the medium of the arts. (p. 63)

This is embodied in M. Lynch’s large-scale community theatre project The Stone Chair (1989) based in a predominantly Catholic nationalist enclave within Protestant/loyalist East Belfast known as the Short Strand area, one of the first to be segregated by a peace wall at the outset of the conflict:

57 _{Many funding bodies have provided millions to the cultural sector including the European Union as}

mentioned in the introductory chapter; United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland state bodies, and private foundations and international funds namely from the United States and Australia (Jennings, 2012, pp. 104-105; also Bush & Houston, 2011).

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This enclosure has consolidated both the community’s sense of self and connection between itself and its locale as

territory … Physical containment has been matched by a sense of voicelessness within the community. (Maguire, 2006, p. 123; also McKittrick, 2011; Tonge, 2006)

This project was about empowerment of a local community “that had been silenced by its isolation from its surrounding environment” (Maguire, 2006, p. 123). The end product was a fusion of reminiscences on the experiences of the area during the Belfast Blitz in 1941 gathered through archival

research, interviews with area residents and original writing by M. Lynch (see Byrne, 2001, pp. 98-101; Barton, 1989). In doing so, the theatrical event opened “itself to loyalist and unionist audiences where the shared experience pre-dated the contemporary conflict” (Maguire, 2006, p. 133):

On the night that I was there a proportion of the audience was Protestant working class watching closely as for the first time in their lives some of them saw right inside a Catholic city village and saw that the people they watched were themselves … It’s a powerful contribution to community relations. (McAughrey, 1989 cited in Byrne, 2001, p. 99)

This project also had positive impacts on local residents, many of whom resisted “the idea of using theatre as a medium” (Maguire, 2006, p. 124).

In the aftermath of the conflict many theatre-makers in Northern Ireland have actively contributed to the transition to peace by providing a creative space where people can potentially find ways of coping

with identities that remain in opposition, dealing with memories of violence, managing the grief resulting from extraordinary loss, and living with the devastating economic impact of the conflict and the more general urban de-

industrialisation affecting the region. (Thompson et al., 2009, pp. 230-231)

Through their work theatre-makers enter personal, cultural and social spaces, “the feelings that performance evokes, and the responses. it

provokes, cannot be taken for granted” (ibid., p. 205). In his talk entitled I was born in the rain and soaked in conflict – theatre in conflict given at Queen’s University Belfast (May 2014), actor and writer V. Higgins (cited in Foy, 2014) stated that while it is important for people to reflect on and respond to issues raised by a performance through post-show discussions, as an actor it is sometimes difficult to hear audience members’ stories

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immediately after performing (n.p.). In interview, V. Higgins shared that due to the nature of the issues explored in the play Those You Pass on the Street (to be examined in chapter 5), he could not attend all discussions (personal communication, February 3, 2015). He really felt for people “stuck in a tremendous amount of grief. So to be able to do the play every night, [he] needed a break from it, from hearing these stories every single night” (ibid.). This testimony speaks to the complexities of engaging in theatre work in a “context where what you are ‘pretending to be’, and what you ‘are’ cannot be easily separated by an appeal to technique” (McDonnell, 2008, p. 215). For this actor is it always very important to determine

“‘where you situate yourself” regarding a particular production and recognise “what may trigger you as an actor and a human being” (V. Higgins cited in Foy, 2014, n.p.).

4.2.2 Examples of Innovative Theatre Work Produced in the Early