Jo Caird: The Power of Promenade

Punchdrunk has been instrumental in bringing this work into
the spotlight in recent years: the company’s The Masque of the Red
Death was the hottest ticket of the year in 2007, the show’s
combination of darkness and discovery bringing an edginess to
promenade theatre that made the cool kids come running.

A couple of recent conversations, however, as well as an
unexpectedly inspiring evening of community theatre, got me thinking about the
wider potential of this type of performance to engage not just those in the
know enough to get their paws on tickets for shows like last year’s glorious
You Me Bum Bum Train and Punchdrunk’s ENO collaboration, The Duchess of Malfi
(which sold out within 4.86 seconds I believe), but people who have never been
to, or taken an interest in theatre in their lives.

I interviewed playwright Jonathan Holmes (he of
Fallujah and Katrina fame) about his
latest project, The Mill – City of Dreams, a site-specific,
largely verbatim piece currently playing in a disused mill in Bradford. The
play draws on hours of interviews with local people, many of whom have no
previous experience of theatre, and the show’s producers are keen to keep the
community involved throughout the process.

During our interview, Holmes made some fascinating points
about how the “neutrality of a found space” can work to assuage the anxieties
of those for whom theatre is an elite and seemingly irrelevant cultural form.
Promenade work, he said, is something that young audiences, even those new to
theatre, are often more comfortable with because interactivity and
progression-based entertainment is already familiar to them from gaming.
Essentially, by taking plays out of theatres and letting people take an active
role in their entertainment experience, you stand a chance of reaching a whole
new audience.

A few days after this conversation, a trip out of London to
see The Amersham Martyrs Community Play (which in the spirit
of full disclosure I should mention was directed by my boyfriend’s father) was
an illuminating opportunity to see the potential of promenade theatre in
action.

While a handful of the community cast of 60 adults and 40 children had
some experience of amateur dramatics or school plays, most were entirely new to
acting. During the play’s scripted scenes, in which a dozen or so
people had speaking parts, this lack of technical skill was apparent; but for
the production’s improvised promenade moments, including a 15-minute opening
scene showing the 16th-century villagers going about their business
on market day while the audience wandered around eavesdropping on them, the
cast was faultless. It was remarkable to see these non-actors so deeply
committed to their performances. My boyfriend’s father later told me that many
individuals in his cast have expressed their amazement at being able to take
part in this way and have found a joy in something they thought was off limits
to them as ‘non-artistic people’.

In the same way that new audiences might be ready to engage
with promenade work because it doesn’t involve the ‘baggage’ of conventional
theatre, people nervous about acting might be willing to take on a role in a
promenade production like The Martyrs because it is gives them the
thrill of artistic involvement without the pressure of performance.

So while
I’m thrilled that promenade theatre is hip at the moment, what I
think is far more exciting is that along with being trendy, the genre could hold
the key to greater engagement in theatre and the arts more generally.