NT : Go Backstage : Departmental Profiles : Education

Education

NT Education Connects
Lou White

Education is now called Discover and you can find out about how much more it now does at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover  

It's an average Wednesday afternoon at the National Theatre. In the Olivier, audiences are starting to take their seats for the matinee. Meanwhile, in County Kildare, a youth theatre is rehearsing a play specially written for them by Mark Ravenhill. In Lewisham, south London, a local group of teenagers are one by one getting up on stage to challenge the actors in a piece of theatre about under-age pregnancies. At the same time, schoolchildren in the Wirral are agog at an out-of-this world performance of Shakespeare which is playing in their school hall, and English and Drama teachers from all over the country are learning extra skills at an in-service training day.



Believe it or not, all of these varied activities are happening under the NT's banner, thanks to the work of the National Theatre's Education and Training Department. In 2003, the department was responsible for 15 different projects aimed at demystifying the theatre for young people, including reduced rates for school visits and work sheets and magazines for teachers; but workshops, debates, tours and youth theatre programmes are at the core of their efforts. Most of the time these projects go out to meet their intended audiences on home turf, clocking a fair few thousand road miles in the attempt to engage as many 4-to-18-year-olds as possible. Which isn't to say their efforts always get an enthusiastic welcome.



"Their initial response is usually: 'I didn't come here to perform!'" laughs Christopher John Hall, who played Prospero in The Tempest, the National's Shakespeare Unplugged tour this year. Before every performance in schools round the country he led workshops on the play, during which students were cast in their own whistle-stop nine-scene version of The Tempest. Once the teenagers get over their surprise at the unexpected level of interaction, the technique is the perfect way of getting year 9 and 10s to connect with the text. "Shakespeare suddenly becomes something of interest to them. You hear them saying, 'I didn't know he was like that!' Many of the students we met only did Shakespeare in English classes, they'd never seen it as a play before. By the end of the workshop they are beaming."



The NT isn't afraid to step outside Key Stages and curricula and exploit its talents to engage with all aspects of young people's lives. The gloriously named Wam Bam! project is a forum piece devised to discuss the issue of teenage pregnancy with 15 and 16-year-olds in south London. Courageous and inventive, certainly – but is this really what the National was set up to do?



Project co-ordinator Susie McDonald is clear that it is. "I've always applied theatre to educational settings. I've used forum theatre with the National for four to five years now, and believe me, it's the way forward." For those not familiar with Augusto Boal's technique, forum theatre is about as interactive as drama gets. A play presents the audience with a problem (in Boal's time it was the politics surrounding the case for revolution; in Wam Bam!'s case it's a teenager who wants to have sex with her boyfriend). The audience is then invited to join the discussion by taking the place of the central actor and attempting their own strategies to negotiate a solution. It's an ideal format for engaging young people not only in the debate in hand, but in the relevance of theatre to their lives.



"They're much more open to learning from a piece of theatre," says Susie. "We can include really heavy, factual pieces of information and they'll absorb it all – they even repeat lines back to us word for word. But you give them the same information in a leaflet and it's a waste of time." It's an eye-opening experience for adults who are more used to a response of apathy when it comes to anything 'educational', let alone a discussion of S.E.X. "Most teachers don't believe anyone will get up and act," reports Susie. "In fact, the teenagers become incredibly engaged. When we get going the buzz is extraordinary."

While Wam Bam! has been making the journey to deliver theatre to the doorsteps of teenagers, another of the National's projects brings young people right to the heart of its business – performing world-class theatre under the spotlights of the NT's own stages.



Now in its eleventh year, the Shell Connections programme begins with commissions to some of the world's leading playwrights to write specifically for youth theatre companies – this year's 10 contributors included Mark Ravenhill, Maya Chowdhry and Norway's Jon Fosse. 166 youth companies picked their favourite text to perform in regional showcases at major theatres. All pretty exciting for the average 15-year-old; but it gets even better. The National chooses 12 of the companies to perform again in the Olivier or Cottesloe and all the other participants are invited to watch, celebrate and join in a week of festival activities, which happens this year in July. All this makes over four thousand young people very happy indeed.



Some of those are the Kildare Youth Theatre @ Crooked House, County Kildare, who made it all the way to the Olivier in their first year of participation with their production of Mark Ravenhill's Totally Over You. "These plays are a godsend," says Peter Hussey, the artistic director of Crooked House. "Finding plays especially for young people, particularly with parts for girls, is very difficult. And these are suited to the teenage mentality."



Ravenhill's story of boys donning disguises to hoodwink their fame-obsessed girlfriends wasn't an immediate hit with the cast. "They all started out saying 'What on earth is this? It'll never work. This situation is ludicrous'," says Peter. "But as they got into the characters, they made the connection with their own lives. The play becomes completely alive for them. And the process builds character and confidence in the children."



Grappling with a complex text was also the experience of the Bristol Old Vic Youth Theatre. 15-year-old Ottalie Thompson got her first shot at a lead part with the role of Unn in Lucinda Coxon's The Ice Palace, but it felt like a mixed blessing when she was handed the script. "The play really confused me at first. I didn't understand anything," she admits.



Coxon's play uses a non-linear storyline for its folk-style tale set amidst the Norwegian winter – all very alien to its cast of under-18s. It required intense commitment and sophisticated rehearsal techniques to pull it off, for both the principles and chorus members, like 15-year-old Ben Carruthers. "We did lots of work on character background – where they lived, what their village was like – and we worked on how to bring the physicality of an 11-year-old to life," he says. Ottalie had even more work to do. "Heather, the director, made us stop at every single line and work out what it meant. I did think one of the other plays would have been easier!"



But it won both actors and audience over. "I'm really pleased and proud to put my name to it. I'd not come across anything like it before," says Ben. "But now I'm coming to understand it, I like it very much." The rehearsal techniques also proved an aid for the many cast members studying GCSE or AS-level drama.



By putting such exciting works and professional theatres at their disposal, Shell Connections has allowed youth theatre groups to blossom. "It's galvanised interest in the county about the youth theatre – put us on the map," says Peter. "An increasing number of kids are interested now and our success will encourage other groups to take part as well. To be 16 and 17 and performing at the National Theatre – that opportunity is amazing."



© Lou White, July 2003



Lou White is a freelance journalist