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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Early Days (of a Better Nation) review – your country and this play need you | Early Days (of a Better Nation) review – your country and this play need you |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| If you want to see the future of British theatre now, then Coney is one of the companies to watch. The creators of A Small Town Anywhere, a piece with no actors, only a participating audience, have come up with a new performance that explores how we might organise ourselves and society, questions what democracy really is and, once again, puts the audience at the heart of the work. | If you want to see the future of British theatre now, then Coney is one of the companies to watch. The creators of A Small Town Anywhere, a piece with no actors, only a participating audience, have come up with a new performance that explores how we might organise ourselves and society, questions what democracy really is and, once again, puts the audience at the heart of the work. |
| This is the situation: we are citizens of a nation that has been afflicted by a civil war that has divided those living in the islands, the city and the plains. The country is on the brink of collapse. Citizens from each part of the country are attending a unity parliament. We must decide whether we want to accept the World Council’s offer to send in aid and peacekeeping troops. | |
| The production, which has been playing in London as part of Parliament Week 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30041158 and which will be fine-tuned before it sets out on tour next year, is utterly fascinating, sitting somewhere between the forum theatre of Augusto Boal and gaming. As yet it hasn’t quite found a structure that is both tight enough and yet loose enough to allow for dissent (although at the performance I attended, a breakaway group sacked the media), and the piece needs to supply the playing audience with more information and backstory, or we are simply making meaningless decisions in the dark. | |
| But what’s fascinating to watch is how quickly people start identifying with their randomly allocated region; how positions become entrenched, how hard it is to think outside the box, how quickly things descend into chaos, the way privilege and loud voices dominate, and just how wonderful human beings can be. It’s both profoundly depressing and exhilarating in equal measure. If you ever thought you’d do a better job of running the country, this is your chance. | But what’s fascinating to watch is how quickly people start identifying with their randomly allocated region; how positions become entrenched, how hard it is to think outside the box, how quickly things descend into chaos, the way privilege and loud voices dominate, and just how wonderful human beings can be. It’s both profoundly depressing and exhilarating in equal measure. If you ever thought you’d do a better job of running the country, this is your chance. |