Elephant in the Room // Lanre Malaolu

Bouncing across the stage of Camden People’s Theatre, Lanre Malaolu uses the physical to reflect the social. His movement on stage mirrors his movement through life, echoing the way his body as a black man in Britain today is seen, read, and considered by others. Taking on stereotypes but looping them, making them strange by heightening and twisting their dynamics, his athletic investment adds weight to what might otherwise be familiar representations. The characters Malaolu embodies are varied, from the inspirational football coach to someone all cocky young swagger. They are each archetypes of identity consistently played out in television, film and the media, from news reports to Channel 4 drama. He differentiates each through a discrete posture (like a slouch in a Nando’s booth), and/or a series of sparse actions (sedately trimming hair in a barbershop). 

Although distinct, within the show these different characters, both the central ‘Michael’ and the unnamed others, could easily also make sense as a single figure – one person rendered in multiple fragments. Malaolu’s shifting shows how the articulate and inspirational speech given to even younger men in a half-time huddle might itself cloak a deep insecurity, always at risk of fracturing under the pressure. Or how the wisdom of an older man might reflect a lifetime of the same pressures he now gives advice on. In doing so it makes plain how the marginalizing operations of society relies on those it puts under pressure to prop up those it will fall on next. 

As much as each set of movements, postures and different voices delineate characters, Malaolu’s performance adds one more. The body of a trained dancer, the way someone moves who has put in the time to learn his technique, is itself an embodiment of a personality. A way to exist in the world, a way to define your own body, from the mastery of steps to the poise of the stance. It controls the gaze of the audience, the way the body is seen, in a way that those young men represented here are usually denied. 

-      Lewis Church

Links relevant to this diagnosis:

Lanre Malaolu

Elephant In the Room – Guardian

‘Up My Streets’ Project – MIND

Perceptions of Young Black Men – Independent

MANDEM– Media platform for young men of colour.

100 Black Men of London 

HOW IS UNCLE JOHN? // Creative Garage

Abuse often comes shrouded in code. It comes in signs. Physical marks and distress, eyes that won’t meet yours, garbled speech, a sort of radical shrinking. There’s the less obvious, mental iterations. Rapid and sudden introversion, anxiety, depression: another sort of radical diminishing.

How is Uncle John? is the show that deals with these codes. It’s a duologue dealing with sex as power and economic capital. It’s a show dealing with sex trafficking. Even more particularly it’s a show dealing with a mother and daughter attempting to discuss- allusively, brokenly- the shattering effects of its aftermath and trying to piece together something approaching a new start.

“Uncle John” is a code and a sign. It’s a safe-phrase, used so Hope (the daughter) can alert her mother to danger. Even with all of its generic masculinity, it is an incantation that can’t banish away male violence. Anxiety permeates the whole tone and mood. There’s a mother's evident and obvious anxiety. There’s the anxiety of the vulnerable, exploited Hope. And there’s the pressing anxiety that no simple safe code can expel a world of violence meted out to the vulnerable. It’s a dramatic microcosm of the ‘real’ world, one in which the use of sex, force and power rule, and the shattered lives of the weak stand as testimony. (FG)

How Is Uncle John? played at Assembly Hall - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/how-is-uncle-john

Modern Slavery in the UK- http://www.unseenuk.org/

Understanding the Language of Narcissistic Abuse- http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/10/understanding-the-language-of-narcissistic-abuse/

Threatened Child (Extract)- https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8VIg9STL-wUC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=the+rhetoric+of+abuse&ots=KFwjjP6uwF&sig=k76qR5vNR9QzvZj6KEb6j90ytcc#v=onepage&q=the%20rhetoric%20of%20abuse&f=false 

Trafficking Survivor Stories- http://www.equalitynow.org/campaigns/trafficking-survivor-stories

JOAN // Milk Presents

In ‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’, Liah Greenfeld writes that “A widely held idea (say, that hell awaits those who eat flesh on Fridays, or that all men are created equal) is no less a reality for people in the community holding the idea than the Atlantic Ocean”. Her bracingly forthright sociological study goes on to dismiss those who “diagnose entire cultures as psychotic...retroactively pronounce medieval saints schizophrenics”.

It’s a helpful thought to bear in mind when hearing the story of Joan of Arc. It’s a historical fact that a teenage peasant girl with no military background presided over a period of astonishing success for the French army in the 13th century -- while claiming to be taking directions from God. Accounts of the time stress her femininity, purity and delicacy, as a holy maiden who was literally heaven sent.

Lucy J. Skilbeck’s play makes her something a little tougher. Where medieval commentators were keen to emphasise that she only dressed as a man to preserve her chastity and safety, drag king LoUis CYfer embraces the masculinity of a woman who charged into battle in a specially made suit of armour.

Skilbeck’s focus on gender identity shows the power of religious zeal to overcome other culturally ingrained ideas, like the need for women to be meek and submissive. Medieval saints could (often literally) float over gender norms by dint of divine intervention. But medieval ideas on gender were also surprisingly modern: themes of gender transformation fill romances, while scientists believed that physical exercise, sexual desire or even just excessive heat could transform women into men. Skilbeck’s approach makes Joan’s approach both natural and deliberate: a series of tiny decisions, as well as one broad ecstatic creation. CYfer is an acclaimed performer on the drag cabaret scene, and this experience shows in a brilliant observed set of comic songs and physical performances. CYfer parodies all kinds of men, from a gruff father to a camp priest, and borrows their mannerisms: their self-consciousness heightened by the mirrors that surround the stage.

Joan becomes the world’s first drag king, a joyful anachronism heightened by CYfer’s Tank Girl t-shirt and 21st century song choices. Skilbeck’s story sticks close to its medieval source too, though, spelling out the painful details of victory in battle, then backlash from the religious establishment. In medieval times, as now, the freedom to step outside prescribed female roles is dependent on cultural mood. And when the mass shared belief in Joan’s divinity fades, so does Joan’s ability to perform a gender that’s artificial and hugely natural, at once.

- AS

Joan was on at Underbelly at Edinburgh Fringe, 5-28th August https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/joan

‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’ by Liah Greenfeld https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Le4anj8kJPkC&dq=medieval+saints+psychosis

Ideas of gender transformation in medieval fiction http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1813&context=mff

THE INTERFERENCE // Pepperdine University (USA)

A series of high-profile cases has drawn attention to the idea that a ‘rape culture’ exists in American colleges - a micro-climate where sexually predatory behaviour is both normalised, and enabled by social codes around masculinity. And one, too, where victims are either disbelieved or blamed. Cork-based playwright Lynda Radley’s latest play is a 360 degree view of a female student Karen’s experience of reporting a campus rape, and seeking justice. But unlike most reporting on campus rapes, it takes her perspective, showing the serious mental health impact of her experiences while her college football star rapist Smith emerges unscathed.

There’s a culture of doubting rape victims, one that’s made worse both by right-wing observers who pounce on the very rare incidents of false reports. In particular, the 2014 Rolling Stone article ‘A Rape On Campus’ received widespread criticism for the way in which it trusted and relied on the testimony of victim ‘Jackie’ - the magazine retracted the article in the wake of multiple lawsuits. In Radley’s play, media commentators use the discredited Rolling Stone article as a reason to disbelieve Karen’s story.

But there are other, more pragmatic reasons for doubting Karen. Smith is a star quarterback, who has huge symbolic and monetary value to the college: the administration rallies round their sporting cash cow. Meanwhile, hostile college students point to Smith’s social cachet to suggest that Karen must have been attracted to him, then regretted the incident later.

Radley’s play is densely researched, giving it a verbatim feel. It offers an insight into the huge range of strategies used to discredit women who report rapes: including the notorious 1999 case where a judge ruled that a woman wearing jeans could not have be raped, as they were difficult to remove without her consent. But her comprehensive approach is given immediacy and urgency by its use of a cast of 12 performers from Peppardine University. They’ve got a stereotypically all-American preppiness and wholesomeness that evokes a culture that’s very different from British universities - one where sports stars are idolised, and fraternities give a social elite of male students added control over the wider student body.

Karen’s experience transforms her from being a confident member of this social elite into a hated outcast, depressed and failing her classes. It’s a multi-layered insight into how the mental health repercussions of rape are multiplied by a system that works to silence survivors by systematic gaslighting, bullying, and intimidation.

- Alice Saville

The Interference was on at C Venues from 9-16 August - more information here: http://www.cthefestival.com/press/2016/the-interference

Rolling Stone’s retraction of its article ‘A Rape On Campus’: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/a-note-to-our-readers-20141205

A survey of the three lawsuits in progress as part of the fallout from the Rolling Stone article ‘A Rape On Campus’: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/10/473702981/revisiting-rolling-stone-s-discredited-campus-rape-story

Judge’s ruling in 1999 rape case: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/277263.stm

Lynda Radley’s website: http://www.lyndaradley.com/

5 OUT OF 10 MEN // Deep Diving Ensemble

Male suicide is at epidemic proportions, the leading cause of death for men between 20 and 34 in England and Wales, an undiscussed wave of futile waste. Like mental health provisions across the UK, support for young men has been eroded, and the new societies of the 21st century have less use for the strong, silent and stoic men still lionised by those who advocate ‘traditional values’ and roles. The idea of a man is changing, whilst the ideal takes time to catch up.
 
Sometimes it seems the most common place to see these statistics are when they are needlessly weaponised, used by clueless men’s rights advocates as evidence of feminist blind spots, without acknowledging the potential of gender equality to fix the underlying causes of the pain and suffering. Men who are told not to cry, not to express emotions, to sublimate their desires into unhealthy outlets and to never show weakness. Boys who grow up with stilted relationships to their own feelings, and shame with their inability to fix it. Remember how normal it is that boys are told to not act ‘like a girl’, to ‘man up’ or to be strong. That is a symptom of patriarchy too, an archaic set of rigid gender roles that fail to map on to the modern world.
 
In the physical theatre workout of 5 Out of 10 Men, these arguments are rehearsed through the story of a young man’s suicide. Its issues are raised simply and without special nuance, its central character a broad cypher for societal concern. It sits within a move towards cultural interrogations of maleness alongside gender in general, whether Grayson Perry’s All Man series for Channel 4 or the Southbank Centre’s BEING A MAN festival. 5 Out of 10 Men’s dancers take on the physicality of the ideal, the swagger of the masculine as well as the exhaustion of pressure. Like its character, it flags as it goes on, tiredness and sweat streaking the performers and wracking their bodies. At its end, the narrative has led only to the death of the young man, his fate set by the pressures placed upon him.

- Lewis Church

5 Out of 10 Men ran at theSpace on Niddry Street until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/5-out-of-10-men

Deep Diving Ensemble: http://www.deepdivingmen.com
 
Samaritans Sucide Statistics Report 2016: http://www.samaritans.org/about-us/our-research/facts-and-figures-about-suicide/suicide-statistics-report-2016
 
Tony Porter: A Call to Men (TED):  http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_porter_a_call_to_men?language=en
 
Grayson Perry – Whither Big Balls?: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2016/05/whither-big-balls-grayson-perry-investigates-masculinity-better-anyone-else
 
Southbank Centre BAM Festival: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/festivals-series/being-a-man
 
Get Help with Suicide (CALM): https://www.thecalmzone.net/help/get-help/suicide/

TWO MAN SHOW // RashDash

There is a crisis in masculinity. Men can no longer be bearded, belching monsters, retreating to their man-caves at the merest whiff of emotion. Women are in charge now, and men now have to stop solving problems with their fists. They have talk to each other. They have to have feelings, damn it. This is the initial premise of Two Man Show – actually a three-woman piece. But, just as the title of the show misleads us as to the gender identities of the performers, the show itself tells us less about what it is to be a 21st century man, and more about what it is to be a woman.
 
Following a quick overview of how the patriarchy has ruined everything, we see women portrayed as goddesses, as muses, on pedestals, as voiceless figurines. We see women acting out the characters of two brothers, struggling to communicate about death and impending fatherhood, jaws and hearts hardened and set against each other.
 
Most of the show involves the two main performers and creators – Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland – either topless or completely naked. It seems potentially gratuitous, titillating or desensitising. Then as women playing men, standing about in their boxer shorts in the morning, it seems fine. After all, men are allowed to walk around in just their pants, aren’t they?
 
It’s not the only ‘un-ladylike’ behaviour the audience is asked to confront. Women swear. We fight. We fuck. We make our own rules. We rule our own lives now, thank you very much. But does this mean we’re no longer allowed to be feminine? To use our power softly rather than screaming and shouting? Two Man Show speaks to the very heart of identity yet acknowledges that sometimes there are no words to say how we really feel.

- Dr Kat Arney

Two Man Show ran at Summerhall until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/two-man-show

RashDash: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/

Thoughts from RashDash about on-stage nudity and playing men: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/thoughts/two-man-show-week-four-diary/

Time – The Crisis in Masculinity: http://time.com/4339209/masculinity-crisis/

Ms Magazine – Empowering Femininity: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/07/28/empowering-femininity/

DOUBTING THOMAS // Grassmarket Projects

Doubting Thomas is ostensibly about Glasgow's criminal underworld, but it's also about the consequences of childhood trauma and neglect, and it's about rehabilitation. Written and performed by Thomas McCrudden with support from the cast, it is the true story of his violent past, detailing his time both in and out of prison.

As well as reenacting scenes from his life, McCrudden explores the roots of his offending, investigating how and why someone might become criminally dispossessed. He says: 'When I was growing up I wasn’t shown love, and that created not just a man without a conscience or empathy. It created a monster.' He also talks about how he was always wearing a mask, and it was only when he found the courage to remove it that he was able to change.

McCrudden's stories of life in prison include descriptions of desperate young men unable to read or write, and several bloody suicide attempts. In Doubting Thomas, prison is not a place where people are empowered to turn their lives around; it is a place of violence and fear, full of young men let down by mainstream education who have found the only way they can prove themselves is through crime.

Research by the University of Strathclyde's Interventions for Vulnerable Youth service has explored the links between childhood trauma and offending. Consultant Clinical and Forensic Psychologist Dr Lorraine Johnston says: 'We see some children dismissed as attention seeking or manipulative. But 75-85 per cent of them have significant histories of trauma. Understanding their behaviour as a response to that can be the key.'

The Grassmarket Project was founded in 1990 by Artistic Director Jeremy Weller, who focuses on putting real life stories on stage. There is often only one professional actor in the cast, with the rest of the parts played by the people who actually experienced them. The act of creating and performing the play is a kind of catharsis, a way to confront one's demons and potentially move on. Doubting Thomas is performance as rehab. (HB)

Doubting Thomas is on at Summerhall (venue 26) at 19:20 until 28 August: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/doubting-thomas

'Mental Health and Prisons': http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/mh_in_prison.pdf

'Prison is not working – it’s time for a rehabilitation revolution': http://www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk/prison-is-not-working-its-time-for-a-rehabilitation-revolution/

'Domestic violence a trigger for three quarters of violent young offenders': http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/14329830.Domestic_violence_a_trigger_for_three_quarters_of_violent_young_offenders/

'Understanding the Cycle, Childhood Maltreatment and Future Crime': https://www.princeton.edu/~jcurrie/publications/Understanding%20the%20CycleChildhood.pdf

Positive Prison, Positive Futures: http://www.positiveprison.org

Prison Reform Trust: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk

The Howard League for Penal Reform: http://howardleague.org