On a mild September day in Crouch End I had the pleasure of speaking with my old colleague Becka McFadden. I assisted Becka on the St James Theatre performance of The Return for Legal Aliens Theatre Company of which she is Associate Artistic Director. In all our various interactions since, I have been enthralled by her wealth of knowledge and eloquent communication, so she became a natural choice for my series of Theatre Specialist interviews. Becka heralds from the Pennsylvania town Hershey, home of the chocolate bar and attended Villanova University near Philadelphia before moving to London in 2007 intending to study at LISPA. She left after just one term but remained in the UK and went on to study for a PhD at Goldsmiths University. She now works as a Director, Dramaturge, Teacher and Performer specialising in Czech theatre, physical theatre and new writing and translation. But what led her to become the artist she is today? Her early inspiration and continuing collaboration is the result of a year spent living in Prague during a break from her MA: ‘I taught English while I was in Prague and I also made theatre with a group of interesting international actors.’ She explained that the film industry in Prague brought a lot of different artistic voices to the city. ‘The film [industry] allowed actors to live and create more artistically interesting theatre without worrying about it being commercially viable.’ I wondered whether our own theatre scene in the UK could learn a thing or two from the Czech Republic; Becka explained: ‘The biggest difference is that there’s still a repertory system there that’s very healthy… it allows for experimentation, sometimes the money actors earn in the repertory system subsidises projects that are more experimental.’ All of us that pursue, have pursued, or want to pursue a career in Theatre can probably cite a particular experience that led us to that decision. For me it was probably a school production of Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan that led me to where I am now. I wanted to know what it was that made Becka turn to the Theatre. Like so many great Theatre practitioners of the past, Becka had notions of becoming a Lawyer. It is fitting then that the production which Becka worked on at Villanova during the end of her undergraduate degree; which cemented her desire to work in theatre, was Moises Kaufman’s verbatim drama The Laramie Project. ‘The Laramie project is about Matthew Shepherd, who was a gay student at the University of Wyoming… one night two local townies picked him up and drove him to a fence outside of town, they tied him to the fence, they beat him to within an inch of his life and they left him there and he eventually died of the wounds he sustained. ‘[Kaufman and his company] went and interviewed the towns people, who were asking the same questions as they were… how did this happen? ‘I went to a Catholic University that had a more socially conservative student body than I thought I would encounter when I went there. The process of doing this piece provoked a number of discussions on campus. We didn’t have a gay/straight alliance when we started. As a result of doing this show we were able to organise a panel discussion, and we got our organisation. It showed me that theatre isn’t selfish.’ Though Becka was keen to point out Theatre must work artistically and that its primary goal shouldn’t be as a vehicle for social change, she is aware of Theatre’s political and social power: ‘Any time I’m making something there needs to be a reason why. When I teach dramaturgy I call this the dramaturgical why. How is that decision in dialogue with where it’s being made and the people who are going to see it? When you make theatre with an awareness of where you’re making theatre and you understand that it’s inherently social; it sits within communities and works both artistically and in other ways as well. That’s what [The Laramie Project] taught me.’ We all know that making a career out of art must have its down times, and I wanted to know if there was any time Becka had wanted to quit. ‘When I moved to London in 2007 to go to LISPA. Which was an uninformed decision. I knew that I wanted to study physical theatre… I think I should have done more research because I don’t think Lecoq was ever going to be my route in. The course was run very differently to how I was used to being trained, it was much less personal than I was used to. I didn’t complete the first year even though there are some wonderful things that I’d learned from it’ Becka showed how strong the link between society and theatre making is in her mind when she explained her further difficulty with making theatre in the UK: ‘I don’t know what needs to be made here, I can’t answer the why question, I don’t know what I have to say here yet, because I don’t know what it is.’ Becka had a similar low point recently after finishing her PhD. In both cases it was creating new work that got her back on track. Becka pointed out that: ‘When you don’t know what to do, you do something that you love. You make your own work rather than sitting around waiting for people to give you opportunities and often that produces people to give you opportunities.’ I have often thought that Theatres restorative powers over an audience are mirrored in its affects over actors. Becka ascertained that: ‘We get into really big trouble if we think we are only artists when employed on a production. We think of ourselves as commodities, when we’re not. We’re artists, we have generative powers and we can make our own work. You don’t stop being an artist just because of a run of bad luck with auditions. It’s important to remember one has a practice, just like a musician plays scales every day. One has an identity as an artist that’s independent of every given project.’ I asked Becka whether she considered herself a specialist or not, and what her speciality would be. ‘There are orientating principles that inform all my work. An international perspective. Making work that is well considered in terms of the dramaturgical why, and an awareness to the societies in which it is being made. An attention to working through the body and approaching performance through the body rather than from the text. Whether that makes me a specialist I’m not sure. ‘If I were to say I’m a specialist, which I do sometimes because I think my areas of specialism are physical and devised theatre and new writing and translation and those are things I do that not everyone else seems to. I’m interested in them so then you do more. You realise that you are coming up with a way of doing it. ‘That’s certainly been the case with Legal Aliens with the casting of bi -lingual actors which Is a methodology that we’re invested in as a way of approaching translated material. But is it useful to call yourself a specialist? ‘We all have to create narratives around what we do. Sometimes I say – and I’m only half joking – that I did a PhD to make my CV make sense. And to clarify my narrative which had gotten a bit messy [but] Theatre is a magpie art and everything we learn influences how we work in a holistic way. We bring our previous experiences and we take new lessons onto future projects. At the end of the day making theatre is making theatre.’ Becka’s most recent project was Walthamstow Mysteries, a piece of site specific, promenade theatre written by Deborah Nash that was performed outside on Coppermill fields in Walthamstow Marshes. ‘It was one of the largest projects I have run as a Director in terms of assembling an artistic team and being able to go through a proper casting process. It was great working outside although we did get sun burnt and stung by every sort of nettle and bitten by bugs. It was really cool being there every day, we become very aware of the rhythm of the marshes.’ Becka began to reflect on her own collaborative approach to directing actors: ‘Even though I like the way I work and I want to work that way, every now and then I think ‘if I stand here and admit I don’t know is that really unprofessional?’ and I don’t think it is. [The main role for the director is] facilitation and overall coherence. Dramaturgical coherence.’ And are Directors necessary? ‘Often playwrights do not really know how theatre is made. Some writers don’t understand the process that a text goes through to become playable, and that is the work of rehearsal. You want someone standing outside watching it who is a theatre artist, and I don’t think the writer is always a theatre artist. I’m sure there are [writers] who can do it – I may even know a few - but it’s a hard thing.’ I wanted to know which of Becka’s projects she was most proud of. For obvious reasons, The Laramie Project had to be mentioned. Also the multi-lingual production of The Winter’s Tale which Becka performed in with Parrabbola for its innovative use of language. I asked her whether she saw more multi-lingual performance being made in Britain. Although she has hopes and has said that Legal Aliens is looking into ways of making bi-lingual Shakespeare, Becka reflects that, ‘In Britain it’s hard to get that type of work made, because there’s so much emphasis on the playwright.’ But most of all, Becka is very proud of her current endeavour Backstories which she is devising with her collaborator and friend Scheherazaad Cooper – an Actor and classically trained Indian Odissi dancer. They have been fortunate to find development opportunities both in the UK and Czech Republic and will present an extract at Sadler’s Wells in London in October. The piece is a non-text based series of solos and duets exploring the back body and how our lives and tensions are played out through the back. Becka admits that the amount of positive feedback in this experimental project has made her very proud. But what about the future? I wanted to know which English language play she would most like to work on that she hasn’t had the chance to yet. ‘Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal’ which follows the story of a young woman restricted by societies expectations to the point that she murders her husband and is subsequently executed by electric chair. ‘I love expressionist plays. I love the rhythm of the language. It’s grounded in such a genuine emotional reality while also being really heightened stylistically.’ Becka reflects that while the play still speaks to a particular female experience, dramaturgically it now works on a different level: ‘I think it speaks to an experience of coming out of University and thinking, ‘I have to get a job, I have to get a job, it may make me really unhappy but I have to get a job.’ Becka closed the interview with a good piece of advice. Something which students and graduates alike should listen to very carefully, and which even Becka has to remind herself of from time to time: ‘There’s no moment where you feel like you’re good enough. When I was young I was over concerned with external validation but the only way through is work and time. Those of us who find our way into this field are all inclined to be good at it. There’s really no replacement for time and work. Work a lot, even if it’s just on yourself.’ *Becka McFadden is a performer, director, devisor and dramaturg, working primarily on devised physical theatre, new writing in translation and community-based theatre projects. She holds an MA in Theatre from Villanova University (PA, USA) and a PhD in Theatre & Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London. Recent directing credits include The Walthamstow Mysteries (Coppermill Fields, Walthamstow Marshes); Commodity (Theatre Lab Company, Riverside Studios); and The Return (LegalAliens, St. James Theatre Studio). With Scheherazaad Cooper, she is co-creator of BackStories, currently in development with support from Arts Council England, Canada Council for the Arts and Cooltour (Ostrava, Czech Republic). Based in London since 2007, Becka grew up in Pennsylvania and has spent significant time living and working in the Czech Republic and Poland. She is Associate Artistic Director of LegalAliens International Theatre Company and founding Artistic Director of Beautiful Confusion Productions.
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I've got some good interview's lined up for the next couple of months, so keep checking back for more details. Today I have a not quite fully formed thought for you about art's funding. I suppose I am posing a question rather than offering a solution. In the UK, our Art's Council scales back every year and private companies who used to spend a little of their profits sponsoring Theatre Companies no longer want to play ball. For today's budding Theatre Makers, the opportunities for funding are few and far between. Largely funds are given to companies who were lucky enough to form before the cuts, who already have good links with the people holding the purse strings. At the moment most makers have to use their own money and/or rely on crowd funding. But now there are so many crowd funding platforms and even major stars are now using the medium to produce their albums and 'engage' with young audiences. For now It is doing the job, but I can't see crowd funding as being a sustainable method of fundraising for the next generation. So this leads me to my main point. When funding is so hard to come by, many theatre companies are creating art for funding's sake. What I mean here is that rather than creating something of artistic merit and then finding the money, they are creating pieces based on the restrictive parameters of a specific funding opportunity and then hoping that it turns into something worth watching. The relationship between money and art has always been tricky, and I am certain that we will never get it exactly right across the board. But I just hope some people out there are still making art for the right reasons. Thanks people. |
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