People make theatre - in Hiroshima

We're in what I call the cooking stage of the Grandchildren of Hiroshima.


There is concentrated application and these are long rehearsals - on Saturday and Sunday we worked for 7 hours in 30 degree heat. But as they say, 'if you can't stand the heat get out of the cooking metaphor'*. There is also broad ownership - last night four different participants stepped up to direct scenes as we recalled them from the workshops in April.

But even as we cook, new people are joining. I was worried the cast lacked any older people, then out of the blue a lady of some years, came to watch. After watching for 3 hours, smiling and sometimes correcting details (how a scarf was worn, how a word is said), we asked her if she could read the  words of a woman who had described being trapped in a collapsed building. The words went with a simple image of an upturned table being slowly lowered on to a young girl. Her delivery carried the soft force of the older voice. The scene pierced the heart. She has joined the cast on the understanding that she can read rather than memorise her text. Deal.

Also watching that day were Fuji and her 7 year old daughter Hikaru. Now I thought they had said they couldn't be in it, I thought they had said they were going on holiday. But no, 'we might be able to be here'. The mother is keen - and the mother enjoys performing. But Hikaru is very very shy. They too watch for a couple of hours. We're staging a scene about a girl who's parents ran an inn where soldiers stayed. The soldiers would give the girl sweets, and the girl would take them to school - and at that time sweets were rare. The school scene has 4 children in it, all between 8 and 11. One has to leave rehearsal early. Will Hikaru step in ? we ask. She's watched the scene several times. She knows about sweets, she knows about school, she brings her expertise into play and she's in.

The company is a blend of experience and first timers. It requires generosity from all. When you watch this group in action it's like watching an ideal. There's a weight, an authority that comes from these citizens. And as they tell this story they gently help each other to tell it as well as they possibly can.

*At Bubble we use a painfully extended food metaphor to describe how we make Vernacular Theatre...

First we forage for ingredients - in this case we've got 20+ personal stories from people who survived having an atom bomb dropped on their city, facts about how you make an atom bomb, facts about what that sort of bomb does, a map of the 7 rivers of the city, a lot of pictures, a lot of fabric, a lot of everyday objects, around 20 performers, a team of technicians, a team of encourager/fixers and a venue.

Then we take all the ingredients and prep them - workshop their tastes, look at fusions, season lightly with Yorie's neutral puppets, then find out what is fresh and what might be a bit off.

Then the recipe writer (Misaki) comes up with the script. 19 pages currently - dialogue, images, different forms of voice, loads of meaty and meaningful parts. Loads of the ideas that were tried when we prepped. And the recipe designer (Yasuko) frames these visually - in this case a traverse space flanked with houses on stilts and flowing cotton drapes.

Then we cook.

Next week we will serve up the feast.

Meanwhile in London, South Africa, Palestine, Belgium, Pune, Milwaukee and Wimborne Minster, groups will be holding public readings of the script of Grandchildren of Hiroshima. We've called this small endeavour Hiroshima Dispersed. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/933166890074856/
or #hiroshimadispersed to find out more.

A small story circle shares a huge story

The company I work with, London Bubble, run a lot of activities where people connect through stories. Working with all ages we mediate creative spaces that offer an opportunity to create, or re-tell stories. I don't want to over-claim but the simple act of sitting in a circle and attending to someone performing a story is often therapeutic. We know from evaluations that children who do not otherwise speak in school, not only speak in these conditions they weave stories. Through stories problems are shared, messages are sent, solutions are rehearsed and narratives are invented that allow us to be ridiculous and to escape the everyday. We call it theatre, someone recently described the outcome as accidental therapy.

Mostly we do that in South East London, but at the moment we’re working on a world story. The story of Hiroshima. A true story of the first deployment of the atom bomb, 70 years ago.
It feels a bit to me as though Hiroshima is a person – and this person has a story, a story of being attacked, suddenly, violently, and experimentally. Hiroshima wants to share this story, partly to process it, partly to warn others – just like we all want to tell our friends about the things that happen to us.

Over the past year, Marigold Hughes the project leader has trained and supported children in Hiroshima to interview survivors of the bomb. Twenty-five interviews have been transcribed, workshopped, and shaped into a script by Misaki Setoyama.

Although the script will be performed in Hiroshima this August it seemed to us that the story needed a wider circle of listeners and that Hiroshima itself needed to share this story with others beyond Japan. But the act of sharing needed to be intimate, to allow the story to work on a human scale, to connect as we connect in those small circles of listening empathisers.

So we have issued an invitation to small companies like ourselves in other parts of the world asking them to mount a reading of the script. To arrange a small act of listening, and consideration and empathising with Hiroshima. Seven readings, one for each of the seven rivers of Hiroshima, are planned - in Pune in India, in Wimborne in Dorset, in South Africa, on Bohol Island in the Philippines, at Bubble in London, at First Stage in Milwaukee and at Yes Theatre on the West Bank in Palestine. On Hiroshima Day, the 6th August these groups will read Misaki’s script and lay out clothes in the shape of the seven rivers of Hiroshima.

As these small rivers flow into the sea, our hope is that next year each of the seven companies might contact seven others, who the following year contact seven more. And that this continues for seven years - small companies, sharing the script with the younger generation who may not know the story of Hiroshima but might be prepared to listen.