Dramaturgy is the biology of a piece of performance, an eco-system of living storytelling generated by the ever evolving and intersecting creation, vision and interpretation of writers, actors, designers, directors, producers and audiences within the particular habitat of time and space it is being made. This ecosystem is constructed through the processes, individual and collective, of the people within it and in turn those processes are driven by their values and experience: the sum-total of everything they are and have been in that moment. The work of this ecosystem drives towards the organisation of a work which is impactful and meaningful to those who watch it. 

As a dramaturg I am concerned with the support of this system, its people and the processes within it. My role is situational, shapeshifting according to the stage of discovery the piece is in and whose dramaturgical interpretation is predominantly at play at any moment, but always it is about holding the space for safe, rigorous and joyful enquiry into making the work the most it can be determined by an underlying understanding of how the system as a whole is working. This sounds lofty, but in practice it’s deeply practical: a cup of tea with a writer to explore the possibilities of an idea, building an understanding of a play’s lens through drafts and open-hearted questioning, supporting a director in a rehearsal as they seek to bring their own storytelling together with the original material, supporting a producer in making hard (or easy) decisions about programming or production, bringing together a body of research to super-charge a rehearsal room, giving someone a hug when they feel overwhelmed and lost – or challenging the system itself when its component parts are no longer in synthesis. It’s a care-full role – one that listens, reflects, holds, notices, reassess: it is compassionate and empathetic, courageous and truth-seeking – I think it’s full of radical, shame-slaying, vulnerability-holding, world-changing, love. 

‘The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again.” Clarissa Pinkola Estés

As we become more and more conscious of the true nature of our diversity as a society, the wide range of experiences within it and better understand the oppression by dominant cultures of that diversity, so we become aware of how much has been lost or missing in our story telling and our theatre culture: how little we tell of human experience, how narrow our definitions are, how small we are in our ambitions and vision, how much that limits us. Meanwhile a culture war is raged by those I believe are determined to bring us back together under a redundant nineteeth century tale of English exceptionalism. Story is the weapon of choice and its disruption a key tool in the battle against the progressive forces which threaten the powerful. The result: disorientation, conflict and ever-fractured opposition as we struggle to unite ourselves under  a unifying twentieth-first century story of who we are and who we hope to be and how we can get there. 

We have lost our collectivism and connectivity, and we know we need to reclaim it – but in a new way, not an old: as storytellers, storymakers, storyfinders we find ourselves in possession of powerful skills. I believe we need to deploy ourselves, organise ourselves and drive a revolution of counter-storytelling which builds and intersects into a body of work strong enough and powerful enough to enable the many, not just the few, to see themselves and be seen. Stories that not only document our lives, but reimagine them. Acts of storytelling that collectively build towards new understanding of ourselves as a people, as a country, as a world. To return to Clarissa Pinkola Estés:

‘The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again.” 

I believe every one of us deserves to experience the power of story in this way. 

We cannot take our storytelling work for granted: A story either upholds or challenges a status quo. We need to be honest with ourselves, with each text we consider and each interpretation we make of it, about what the currency of that story is in the world – what it upholds and what it suppresses. This is not the work of individuals, but of coalitions, working together in ways that prizes and enjoys difference. This is not about single plays, but about the ecosystem of theatre-making and the storyhoard it builds for us to draw inspiration from. We don’t have to answer these questions before we make, but rather find moments of reflection and assessment throughout our processes, where we ask ourselves the most challenging questions.   

We stand in a moment of immensity, a moment of overwhelm and a moment of opportunity but it is also a moment of destabilisation and disorientation as many of us charged with the curation of storytelling become aware that we haven’t the tools or the experience or the resource to do the work we have done comfortably for a long time and have expectations around.  Once you clearly understand that elements of your practice are supremacist, are racist, are ableist, are mysognynistic, are homophobic, are transphobic (as elements of mine are) you feel the urgency to change your practice. There’s introspection, and fragility inherent in this journey. It requires a process of adjustment, but how can that process be completed when you have to turn up to work the next day? How do we undertake this work without placing more burden on those already worn down by the systemic prejudices they face? How do we become effective allies and move beyond to honest coalitions? How do we make space? How do we let go of power, when we feel that our power has been so hard won? How, on limited resources in the midst of a pandemic and a society in economic turmoil, do we do the work we need to do with the care we know it needs? How do we not burn out? How do we keep everyone in the room, safe? 

If we are truly serious about making work that is representative. If we are truly serious about building a theatre system that has justice at its core. If we are truly serious about building a body of story in which every person in this society has the opportunity to either been seen or see themselves differently – then we cannot look at the work alone. We have to look at the system that creates that work, the values it is built on and processes it uses, and be rigourous in our approach to changing that system, so that everyone within it can be held safely, bring their whole selves and make the stories we so desperately need to thrive. 

It is huge and overwhelming work, but by holding space and process and through a million acts of discovery and getting lost and re-finding ourselves again, I believe that together we have the power to move through it with courage and curiosity. And this is what it means for me to be a dramaturg right now: standing alongside others committed to the same work as me – humble, with only myself to bring, willing to serve, to collaborate, to move from the macro to the micro, to stay within the difficulty of it, to get it wrong, but to stay curious, courageous and kind.