Theatre — Personal — Then Do Better

First part of my conversation with Jonathan Meth. This is the second, mainly about Fenc.

We spoke about his work with Fence. It struck me that Fence sounded like a family of artists, connected and challenging - as families can be. We discussed the idea as a playwright as a public artist, bring together other artists and thinkers to make work, be a part of work.

This project All our tomorrows: Ireland has struck oil! - will it be Norway or Nigeria? is one expression of this. It’s happening on 19 Oct in London, and I’m hoping to go.

“Ireland has struck oil – but will be it Norway or Nigeria? is a performance project from The Fence network of international playwrights and theatre makers in partnership with King’s. It will stage and audio record performance and discussion for a live audience on an imagined future scenario, mapping a moment of crisis in Europe from creative, journalistic and academic perspectives.

This performance will explore the urgent questions thrown up by Ireland’s reversal of fortunes and its new oil-rich future, particularly in relation to its Celtic Tiger past and the fall-out from the Credit Crunch, but also in relation to big brother – the British state and its expertise in matters of oil… Where and what are the borders between Irish and British interests? What does Ireland imagine for itself? What can be learnt from experience in Nigeria and in Norway with the challenges of oil?

As the first of the planned All Our Tomorrows series of live performance and audio recordings, this event is developed by Irish-Nigerian playwright Gabriel Gbadamosi as creative editor with a professional radio producer and cross disciplinary academics as pundits. It is produced on behalf of The Fence network of international playwrights and cultural operators by Jonathan Meth.”

This multi-discipline approach appeals to me. Yes, playwrights write plays, and theatres with a bunch of professionals and performers put them on. But there’s more. What I’m finding with the mingle, what I’ve always known in my investment work, is that different disciplines, different thinkers coming together can create new brilliant ways of seeing, different answers to complex questions; or complex answers to deceptively simple questions. Or just have a fun time together.

Time for more? Here’s a short post on 5 things autism has taught me. Here is JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.

Elegant, flowing, beautiful hands. Chatting with Jonathan Meth, I was struck by how eloquent his hands were.

Social decorum crimped me and I felt I couldn’t interject to say - wow your hands wonderfully mesmerize me. Social media strips decorum, so I can say that now.

My writing threads go back to when Jonathan ran writernet which harks back almost 20 years ago now. Now, I’m stepping back into a writing practice or perhaps a playwright as a multi-disciplinary arts-investing person, a some time mingler - which I’m told is a form of covening. It’s amazing to re-connect and hear how artists’ work have developed.

Jonathan has kept an international network of artists through Fence, which seems to me an evolution from the dramaturgical work of writernet (I will split the post and write about Fence in another section). He has also developed a practice in disability arts - and our shared interest in autism crosses over here. There’s a lot to Jonathan’s practice.

Across time and space, we end up on a warm New York autumn evening drinking a bar tender’s choice of drink, 10 over years since we last met.

The disability practice is described in this 2015 Guardian article and on his own site here. What I took away is that there is a strong disability arts practice in various countries, often forging on with limited support, but creating a long history or astonishing art. Three of them are partnered in Crossing the Line (not to be confused with the project that Gideon Lester and others are involved with): Crossing The Line (EU) is a project of the co-operative partnership of 3 European theatre companies: all leaders in the field of working with learning disabled artists. The partners are Moomsteatern in Malmo, Sweden; Compagnie de L’Oiseau Mouche in Roubaix, France and Mind The Gap in Bradford, UK. Jonathan is project dramaturg, and is hoping to expand the partnership to many more countries.

We also intersect on Ambitious about Autism. This is an ABA led group in the UK on ASD special education needs; but Ambitious acknowledges that the tent is larger than ABA and so pushes forward across a range of ASD advocacy; as child-centric and child-led practise informs much of good SEN (and typical) practice today, whatever techniques you find that work (and research is still relatively poor).

Drawing this part together, it was apparent to me that Jonathan speaks many languages. The language of art in its many dialects, the language of SEN, the language of policy makers and funders.

It dawned on me, I speak several of these languages too, and that we need more of us in today’s word. More than ever.

Jonathan spoke of Isaiah Berlin’s Fox (after Greek poet Archilochus) who ‘know many little things’. As Jonathan writes: “They react to challenge by drawing on a pattern of general, pragmatic understanding, often making mistakes but seldom committing themselves to a potentially catastrophic grand strategy.” As opposed to the hedgehog, which knows one big thing. It reminded me of this Nassim Taleb conversation with philosopher Constantine Sandis - Taleb argues a cousin piece of thinking:

“I do not consider myself a hedgehog, but a fox: I warn against focusing (‘anchoring’) on a single possible rare event. Rather, be prepared for the fact that the next large surprise, technological or historical, will not resemble what you have in mind (big surprises are what some people call ‘unknown unknowns’). In other words, learn to be abstract, and think in second order effects rather than being anecdotal – which I show to be against human nature. And crucially, rare events in Extremistan are more consequential by their very nature: the once-every-hundred-year flood is more damaging than the 10 year one, and less frequent.”

Being open minded, being open to possibilities when they happen, intertwining chance - taking those chances - those challenges are absorbing them to make you stronger (anti-fragile, even more than resilient)

Looping back to Spike, that chimes with some of what I hope for him, that we can expose him to enough small and varied challenges and opportunities that he find enough to think, and be, and to find purpose. It’s hard for Spike to do that within an institution. We will find a way.

This last few days in New York has felt a little like that - throwing out the the threads - listening - thinking - being - meeting: from the chance meetings (triggered by the Empty Space), the semi-chance meetings like Jonathan; the near misses (Gideon, I’m still hoping); the re-connections;

Mixed in with the latest in pharmaceutical, medical technology and consumer genetic thinking.

And, I am thankful for that. Part two of conversation here.

Time for more? Here’s a short post on 5 things autism has taught me. Here is JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.