Synopsis From the 1989 book burnings of Salman Rushdie s The Satanic Verses, to the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh and the controversy of the ?Muhammad cartoons in 2005, DV8 s production will examine how these events have reflected and influenced multicultural policies, press freedom and artistic censorship. In the follow up to the critically acclaimed To Be Straight With You, this documentary-style dance-theatre production will use real-life interviews and archive footage. Contributors include a number of high profile writers, campaigners and politicians. Running time: 80mins (no interval). Suitable for ages 16+ Sponsored by Travelex £12 Tickets
Can We Talk About This? is DV8 Physical Theatre's latest project; a danced documentary-style theatre production, conceived and directed by Lloyd Newson. The production opened on Monday (12 March, previews from 9 March 2012) at the NT Lyttelton following a UK and international tour.
A piece of verbatim dance theatre, Can We Talk About This? tackles free speech and Islam, incorporating interview footage. At the National for a limited run to 28 March 2012, it covers controversial issues including militant Islam, Muslim extremism, Islamophobia, forced marriage and the promotion of multiculturalism.
"It's a skilfully weaved case ... DV8 maintain that multiculturalism stops short of cultural relativism ... Lloyd Newson's production plunges headlong into this paradox with the wilful determination of someone forcing their hand into a food disposal unit. It was always going to be messy. He's careful to distinguish between Islam and 'some Muslims,' but the absence of any other species of intolerance leaves the piece disconcertingly prone to manipulation and misunderstanding; a fact not helped by information overload ... Verbatim texts hover above gorgeous choreography, almost dislocated from each other, but always balanced and integral ... The best sequence shows Anne Cryer MP sensibly and carefully arguing against forced marriage ... Kudos to the National for its continued efforts to make equal partners of theatre and verbatim texts, but the real credit belongs to DV8 for theatre that demands – requires – a second viewing. Theatre this potent, this outspoken and this courageous is rare. When it appears, it becomes absolutely necessary viewing."
"A polemical hammer blow only slightly softened by its playful dance theatre medium… DV8… steams into militant Islam and Muslim extremism with a cold fury that'll knock the air from your lungs … The cumulative impact is searing and the message unequivocal: that in the wider political arena there is a double standard… and the reason for this lies in fear of violent reprisals. What distinguishes 'Can We Talk About This?' from more straightforward verbatim theatre is DV8's astonishing physicality … There is an air of mischief and self-mockery to the performers … The real question preying on my woolly liberal mind: would somebody from the EDL or BNP enjoy this show? It's doubtful: it wholeheartedly endorses a multi-faith, multi-ethnic society … There is no solving the challenges posed by a multi-faith society - or the white far right - if we can't hold an honest discussion about them: Can We Talk About This is one hell of a conversation starter."
"Newson's highly expressive team of 10 performers catalogue a number of famous public incidents or ongoing injustices ... It makes a horrifying list ... And, much as I applaud a piece of physical theatre that deals with serious issues, the debate about multiculturalism is over-simplified. What is never explored is the idea that integration in some areas of life can be combined with preservation of one's cultural and religious identity. As always with DV8, the physical side of the show is impressive: one female performer illustrates the determination to escape a forced marriage purely through sinuous hand and hip movements. But, intellectually, the show is full of holes. The idea that people are afraid to speak out about Islamist extremism is disproved by the very existence of this production at the National. And, while I wouldn't call the show Islamophobic, it does nothing to enlighten us about the daily, non-violent practice of faith."
"It says something about the timidity of our theatres and our dramatists that this daring debate about Islamic extremism, multiculturalism and freedom of speech is being presented by the dance and physical theatre company DV8, rather than by a more conventional stage outfit. There appears to have been an alarming amount of self-censorship by the theatrical establishment in tackling these issues ... Great credit then to Newson for both conceiving and directing this production … The stylised movement that accompanies the play's riveting verbal content adds almost nothing. One admires the performers' ability to deliver their lines while jumping up and down ... But the stylised movement actually serves as a distraction from the scary urgency of what is being said ... Style and content seem risibly at odds. Nevertheless there is a coup-de-theatre that brings a sudden sense of palpable danger into the theatre and both the courage and the scrupulous research of this production are never in doubt."
"Can We Talk About This? ... should be subtitled Can We Dance About This? … The piece does not want to start a dialogue. Set in a generic community centre-cum-gym and moving chronologically from the case of Ray Honeyford... the evening is a tendentiously constructed tract posing as a dance-enhanced polemic … The dancing is sometimes a joy to watch ... But when it's not looking abitrary, there's far too much glaring manipulativeness ... There are fantastically difficult and important issues at stake here. They are dealt with in an undeniably powerful but also infuriatingly facile manner ... There were moments as I watched the DV8 piece… when I fancied that this is what hell would be like: forced to be an eternal witness of a show that disqualifies itself as an adequate examination of considerations you ache to see clarified. There is a protest at one point by the most glaring 'plant' you have ever encountered in a theatre. Enough said."
"Lloyd Newson's latest piece of dance theatre is not just brave in the theatrical sense. It is, literally, courageous ... As much as it is about liberal confusion or religious intolerance, Can We Talk About This? is about keeping record. The cast of 10 bring dozens of voices to life with remarkable power, considering how hard they also have to work on choreography that never stops weaving ironic patterns around the words. Joy Constantinides gives Shirley Williams arms like a doctored set of scales ... Langolf, as Christopher Hitchens, turns a copy of the Satanic Verses into a flying dove to refute her ... Even the darkest sections are beautiful. Christina May elegantly traces lines on her body while speaking the words of Ayaan Hirsi Ali ... Respecting someone's rights, Newson argues, is not necessarily the same as respecting their ideas. Anything worth saying will offend someone, somewhere. And choosing to keep silent is a betrayal of everyone who is denied a voice by another's beliefs."
"Even the title of this brave, urgent piece of dance theatre contains several implied interpretations at once … It’s challenging and subtle – apt for a piece that plunges headlong into one of the thorniest issues of our time … Throughout, the piece questions when multiculturalism becomes cultural relativism and what to do when tolerance ends up permitting intolerance … The style is as bold as the subject matter, with the words – all drawn verbatim from interviews or actuality – delivered by dancers on the move … The piece takes on a huge, significant and real problem and does so in a style that is in itself restless and challenging … Tackling a subject of such complexity does produce problems, however. You feel the limits of the piece: the lack of context, for example, of recent wars in the Middle East that inform extremist views … This is a daring, serious piece of theatre that suggests that, in fact, we have to talk about this."
“This is shit! Islamaphobic shit!” shouts the man who has just burst into the Lyttleton auditorium. He throws something – it could be faeces – at the stage. The interruption sends a jolt through the room. Heads turn. Concentration snaps. The show pauses.
It must have been staged. The stagehand that appears with a dustpan and brush is slightly too quick off the mark. The protest itself chimes too neatly with the material. And yet, I can’t be 100% sure. That doubt proves the bravery and potency of DV8’s danced documentary on multiculturalism.
Essentially, it dares to ask whether tolerance extends to intolerance. More specifically, whether liberal Western society should grant freedom of expression to those individuals – particularly individual Muslims – that call for its destruction.
It’s a skilfully weaved case, constructed mostly from verbatim testimonial and media transcripts, that argues post-Rushdie, and a long list of similar attacks on those to have criticised Islam, society has bowed to threat. That we have become unwilling to assert the moral superiority of certain values over others fearful of offence or, worse, repercussions.
Turning focus on forced marriage and Sharia law, DV8 maintain that multiculturalism stops short of cultural relativism. It sounds a bit ‘Britain for British,’ but it’s absolutely not. The one law for all they advocate can – indeed, must – encompass a cross-cultural blend.
Lloyd Newson’s production plunges headlong into this paradox with the wilful determination of someone forcing their hand into a food disposal unit. It was always going to be messy. He’s careful to distinguish between Islam and “some Muslims,” but the absence of any other species of intolerance leaves the piece disconcertingly prone to manipulation and misunderstanding; a fact not helped by information overload. (You leave with a list of further reading and a headful of questions.) It’s a seriously steely artistic choice. Some will call it foolhardy, but theatre exists for such acts of public courage.
Verbatim texts hover above gorgeous choreography, almost dislocated from each other, but always balanced and integral. The effect is to entrance your eyes, the better to attune your ears.[W@S_IMG]#http://whatsonstage.com/images/CanWeTalk360_2012.jpg#360#240#Hannes Langolf & Ira Mandela Siobhan in Can We Talk About This?[/W@S_IMG]
Performers start by hopping in sync, from foot to foot, like politically correct mannequins. As arguments develop, movements grow jagged, complex and arrhythmic. There are motifs of treading carefully, horses backtracking and, with regards media debates, boxing glove-puppets trading harmless blows. The best sequence shows Anne Cryer MP sensibly and carefully arguing against forced marriage while floating, guru-like, with a cup of tea in hand.
Kudos to the National for its continued efforts to make equal partners of theatre and verbatim texts, but the real credit belongs to DV8 for theatre that demands – requires – a second viewing. Hold that against it if you will, but I’d rather theatre that’s too full, too complex and too important for a single sitting any day.
Theatre this potent, this outspoken and this courageous is rare. When it appears, it becomes absolutely necessary viewing.
Simply the most powerful and important piece of theatre I've seen in many, many years - and the fact it's being staged at the centre of the British theatrical establishment is extraordinary and exceptionally brave it itself - my estimation of the National Theatre has leapt stratospherically - my respect for DV8 theatre company needed no boost. Most of the comments above and below cover the content and context but I will add that I thought there was a refreshing degree of balance and fairness in the choice of texts delivered - all spoken verbatim mostly from interviews made by the company - and other forms of extremism were mentioned and the voices of British Muslims were heard - notably a former lecturer and Imam threatened with execution for suggesting the Qu'ran aligned with Darwin's theory of evolution. All in all, exceptionally, magnificently danced by every performer (who rarely looked out of breath to me when delivering the dialogue from where I was sat in the second row - a major feat in itself) and asking serious questions that no major playwright or other theatre company has had the balls to address in the last decade. A major piece of theatre that everyone should try to see. I was left stunned and saddened, challenged and exhilarated. Phenomenal. - Dominic Brewer
22 Mar 12
Matt Trueman and Gareth James - I absolutely agree with your reviews.
The fact that the very art form through which the show is presented - dance and ballet - is itself disallowed by so many UK Muslim faith schools as being 'indecent' should tell us something about why such a production is vital to us today. - Max
16 Mar 12
This is a brilliant polemic, but a polemic it is, and all the more disappointing for it. This polemic also comes too late in British history to be worthwhile. It's essential message (similar to the screeds published every day in the Daily Mail), that the PC establishment has allowed crazy Islamofascists to run rampant all over British culture and values, is such common currency these days that the piece engendered a spontaneous round of applause, that erupted after the 'final' round of applause was over (the lights being on and the actors long departed), which itself followed the initial round of applause. Braying of "hear hear" and roars of approval filled the Lyttelton, and all I could think was. . . this is ridiculous! This kind of unthinking bashing of the other is surely exactly what annoys us most about the Islamofascists. I am an agnostic, who frequently wallows in atheism. I hate what Islamofascist murderers did to Theo Van Gogh, what they did to silence Salman Rushdie, and I love Stewart Lee. But there is no balance here at all. The piece gathers up every extreme thing any Muslim has ever done in Britain, and fails to balance this at all with context. It asks us to declare that we are superior to the Taliban (which I certainly DO declare), but in itself, that is crafty, because the Taliban are the most extreme followers of Islam, and they are a regime, guilty of many crimes, yet they are not themselves Islam. But the piece makes no real distinction between the Taliban and any other Muslim. Nor does it make clear that the anti-feminist nonsense peddled by dominant strains of Islam originate in our very own Western Bible, which declared woman to be merely plucked of Adam's rib, and declared in the old Testament that women should veil themselves. The truth is, if you took every bad instance of Western behaviour, and used that as a cosh to cudgel us, we would not stand up to scrutiny either. The piece suggests angrily that Islam puts the Koran before life, but frequently our Governments put oil and power and money and influence before life. Our Western beacon, the United States, which I love, sometimes seems overly influenced by evangelists who believe crazily in some kind of rapture. We in the West should definitely regard ourselves too among the spectrum of irrational crazies in the world. Tne larger truth is that all kinds of people, both religious and not, both us and them, frequently worship at the alter of authoritarianism and power because we (and they) feel insecure. Sharia Law is equivalently bunkum in my view, fulfiling some peoples' desire for that authoritarian hand, for a surrogate parent. We must not let it bully women and writers in our country, nor must we paint all Muslims into the same crazy corner. I commend this piece for starting a valuable debate. I also rate the piece 3 STARS for it's excellent choreography, in which everyone is better at silly walks than John Cleese. To explain, in this piece, if people silly walk in synch, they are fascists. If people silly walk alone, they are individualists standing up to Islamic bullying. So the silly walking comments on the selected verbatim accounts of Islamic monstrousness. Towards the end of the piece, the kind of depth I wish we could have had more of is dealt with, where 2 prominent Muslim individualists who stood up to the fanaticism become part of the discourse. But it's too little too late. This is not an illuminating piece on how human beings delude themselves in false beliefs to gain feelings of comfort, integration, community and security. What this really is is a manichean portrait of a freedom-loving West attacked by the monster of Islam, and this polemic is shouting loudly "Defend yourself, defend yourself!" It sounds like a lot like one of George Bush Jr's 'crusades' to me. - steveatplays
14 Mar 12
Well, there’s no sitting on the fence here. This latest DV8 piece has a lot to say. London Road set verbatim theatre to music; this one applies it to physical theatre, and gives it an even more documentary feel by the use of video and sound footage. It presents us with our attitudinal evolution, over 25 years, from tolerance through multiculturalism to submission to minority views imported to the west. Now here we are in 2012, in the UK, with 85 Sharia Councils operating a parallel legal system that discriminates against women.
Like London Road, you do wonder why we need music or movement to present such material, yet if you abandon rational reasoning, it does somehow add something. In this case, the cast of ten bounce, gyrate, nod and move in all sorts of ways in every combination as they speak the words of the interviewees (hardly ever seeming out of breath, though occasionally inaudible). It speaks chronologically from sacked Bradford head teacher Ray Honeyford in 1985 to the present day, though Rushdie, Danish cartoons and Dutch films taking in arranged marriage and honour killings en route. It’s presented compellingly and brought all sort of negative emotions to the surface – anger, rage, disgust, contempt….
There is little balance in the show, but as there has been little balance in the public debate, it seems to me perfectly legitimate to ‘talk about this’ as the title suggests. The truth is they are saying what the vast majority of people are thinking but reluctant to say for fear of seeming racist or afraid to say for fear of much worse. I’ve visited 17 muslim countries and have respected every custom and every law on every occasion, yet the opposite happens regularly when I’m at home. Talking about it is, in my book, necessary, welcome and long overdue.
It’s been fascinating to watch DV8 evolve, also over 25 years, from contemporary dance to category-defying groundbreaking work like this. Along the way, people like Nigel Charnock, Russell Maliphant, Wendy Houstoun and choreographer Peter Darling have graced their stages. Lloyd Newson has been there all along and now provides us with a very important work on a national and international stage. You might not enjoy it, you might not like it, but you have to go. - Gareth James
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