Mayfest (Various Venues, Bristol)

We live in the age of the Art of With – participation, inclusivity, community. The phrase is Charles Leadbeater’s, a former advisor to Tony Blair, and his eloquent essay of the same name rejects art made for audiences, that does things to us, and advocates art made with us. It’s at the heart of this year’s Bristol Mayfest, its tenth as an independent festival, with artists like Andy Field, Sue MacLaine and Verity Standen still to come.

Chekhov’s First Play, by Dublin’s Dead Centre, is an art history lesson that charts the ‘Death of the Author’ and, more literally, the death of the director, to argue for the Art of With. Chekhov wrote his first play at 20: an untitled, unfinished five-hour ramble, usually called Platonov, in which four women vie for the affections of its disillusioned protagonist.

It’s such a mess that Bush Moukarzel’s self-aggrandizing director insists on introducing it, prop pistol in hand (Chekhov’s guns always go off in the end), then feeding us a director’s commentary through headphones – just to make sure we get "what’s going on, what it’s about and why we should like it."

Make no mistake, this is a holdup: Chekhov taken hostage by an egomaniac. After various gripes and indiscretions about script, set, cast and art-form, ‘El Director’ throws a strop: "This play’s getting in the way of me explaining it."

What follows takes a wrecking ball – again, quite literally – to Chekhov’s play. An audience member, instructed via headphones, steps in for Platonov; actors vying for his attention. All the artifice – fat suits and bald caps, period costumes and language – gets stripped away as the play breaks down.

As deconstructions go, this one’s droll. It undermines not just Chekhov, but 19th Century naturalism, even theatre, as a whole, asking why we revive old plays and relive old arguments; whether theatre is impactful or indulgent – a way to kill time and stave off death. Very Chekhovian, that. His ennui and revolutionary itch brought up to date.

For all its innovation, however, it’s awful introspective. Chekhov’s First Play snarks without really standing for anything; a staged thesis that’s too smart by half. Hypocritical too: a call for art to serve a social purpose and put the audience at its centre that, in practice, does the opposite. If you’re advocating The Art of With, go out and make it.

That’s what Kid Carpet do in The Castle Builder. A slide show with songs, it’s a hip-hip-hooray for amateur artists whose work – often their life’s work – sits outside of art-world conventions and canons. Jim Bishop, for example, who has spent 47 years single-handedly building his own faux-medieval castle in Colorado. Tressa Prisbey and her million-bottle glass village; Robert Vasseur and his crockery-covered home; James Hampton’s gold-gilt throne, built in his garage.

Contrasted with New York’s ‘best’ architects, pictured dressed as their own buildings, this lot are the same and different. Their creations can seem nuts and naff, but they’re astonishing nonetheless: art made against the odds, as well as the grain. The show’s similar: ramshackle and warm, celebratory and spirited.

Ed Patrick and Vic Llewllyn make a winning double-act – one shambling, the other straight-laced – as a local artist beavers away behind them. Expect an Edinburgh hit this summer.

The Art of With has a DIY ethos, and, in Castle Rock, Bristol’s Massive Owl make the film Stand By Me their own, distilling it down to three non-speaking characters: the boy who’s missing, presumed dead; the train that speeds past, and the deer that stops still.

It’s a fascinating form – they call it ‘live art storytelling’ – that turns narrative into geometry. Boy, deer and train make a triangle, inextricably linked, always colliding in Castle Rock. Despite good thinking and strong images, and a brilliant, pulse-quickening conclusion, poor theatre tattiness gets the better of it. The Art of With can't mean going without.

Bristol’s Mayfest runs until 22 May at venues across Bristol.