The Gathering: Round the Kitchen Table
Before Christmas I wrote a piece about Improbable moving towards a seasonal model of working. Now post-Xmas, but still in winter, I think we are, slowly, making some seasonal shifts. We have just emerged from a four day retreat at our new home-to-be, Bore Place, in Kent. It felt important to be there in days of low light, muddy walks, cold hands and faces. We got a lot done - much dreaming, talking, deepening of relationships, uncovering of old stories, paving the way for some new. Ground clearance, you could call it - good wintry work. But of all the things I could share - of inspiring histories, or lofty ambitions (literally - we spoke of the cathedral-like height of the home we want to build) - the emergent theme that it feels most pressing to write about is much more humble and fundamental: food.
Food - what and when and how you get it - is surely one of the clearest defining features of a seasonal model of working. When I consider food in relation to working with Improbable, or in fact in relation to working in theatre altogether, I realise my experience to date is thoroughly urban and industrial. I think of lunchtime sandwiches grabbed at a Pret A Manger, near to a rehearsal space. Smoothies and little plastic pots of fruit, picked up at the Metro Tesco across the road from a venue. I think of late night meals at whatever restaurant is still open, after the show is over. Of fizzy drinks and packets of mints from motorway service stations. Of getting out supplies from my rucksack, at midnight, sat on the white sheets of a Travelodge bed, on tour. Rock ’n roll.
But last week there we were on a company retreat, walking past cabbages in the Bore Place market garden, because it was January and they were one of the only things growing. And the theme of food, of the how, what, where of it, kept coming up during our four days together. In the ‘one-word-at-a-time’ impro exercises we did in pairs to envisage our creation centre, seasonal food, grown on site, or locally sourced, repeatedly featured. In the stories we swapped of good meals had- of the shared Friday lunchtimes at the Donmar, or of the Dutch theatre company who employ only two full time members of staff - the director and the chef. And in the evenings, we did cook and eat together, on the long tables in the dining room of The Old Stables where we were staying. It reminded me of how, long before we learnt of Bore Place, when we were right at the beginning of our journey towards finding and founding a creative home, one of the first images we had was of a table - a big kitchen table, on which meals could be served, around which ideas could be grown. We have called our quest for a home The Gathering, and a kitchen table is a good place around which to gather.
During the second two days of our retreat we opened space, together with some of the members of The Commonwork Trust, who own the Bore Place site and already live and work there, and with a handful of our Improbable collaborators. Over the last 18 years Open Space Technology (OST), to give it its full name, has transformed our creative practice, how we make work, how we run the company, how we engage with our communities, and it has also, via our Devoted and Disgruntled events, changed the cultural landscape of the performing arts in the UK. OST was born out of, and runs on, the energy of a good coffee break - that window of time when people feel free to follow themselves and engage in relaxed, spontaneous exchanges. When I think of how much has emerged from that cup-of-tea time, it makes me wonder now where a meal might take us…….
It has an altogether different energy - a meal to a tea or coffee break. One of the key architectural features of an Open Space event is that there are no tables, and no lines - only circles of chairs, with empty space between them. Sitting round a kitchen table to eat a meal invites a different kind of communication and commitment. It’s a little more formal. It’s a little less easy to get up and move around. It may provoke a slower, longer, perhaps deeper exchange - a bigger investment, a greater ingestion - things I think we want as we start to root ourselves in a particular geography, as we wind down on the rock ’n roll lifestyle. I notice I still find it slightly scary, as well as attractive. I say ‘still’ because for years it terrified me. From about the age of thirteen to thirty I was anorexic and the idea of having to sit down to a communal meal was nightmarish. Anorexia can involve, contrary to what many may think, a deep love of and engagement with food, and struggling with an eating disorder during my early adult life, has given me an intimate understanding of the dynamics of a mealtime. Food is intimate. Profoundly personal, as well as social and communal. It is vital and it renders us vulnerable - we take it inside ourselves. It is momentous, and also utterly mundane. The making of a meal is, arguably, the primal creative act. It shares a great many things in common with a good theatre show. It is a ritual that involves bringing people together into a temporary community, to have a shared experience that will change them. A meal changes you, just as a good conversation or a good piece of art changes you. It may be a simple change - you may just go from empty to full - but it’s a potent one. And often the food, the talk, and the art, take place alongside one other: a good meal, a good conversation - creative acts indeed.
Back at the outset of our Gathering quest, when Phelim was dreaming about the space we might build, he had a moment of imagining a quote from our patron, Keith Johnstone, author of Impro, carved into the beams of our future home:
‘If theatre didn’t exist, this would be a good place to start.’
Johnstone is referring to Lifegame a form that combines memoir and impro - an aboriginal kind of storytelling. But it occurs to me now that surely even before the story starts, comes the act of making a meal, of eating it together. If theatre didn’t exist, then round a big kitchen table might be the place for it to start.
Phelim has also reminded me of the deep mythology around food that exists within theatre making: Of Bread and Puppet creating protest theatre from dough; of Jude Kelly’s original vision for Metal, of using the length of the West Hampstead Theatre ticket office for a long table, where the best ideas could happen; of the importance of shared meals in Kneehigh’s process, nurturing body, mind, soul and community. There’s a rich lineage of creative feasting for us to follow.
And guess what? The Common Work Trust have put out an amazing invitation to find someone to help shape the future of food at Bore Place. They are seeking a dynamic chef to cook for the diverse groups of people that gather on site and engage with the multiple strands of activity that take place there, someone who shares the team’s values and passionate commitment to creating a better future by providing a place that brings sustainability to life, and offers opportunities for learning, growth and inspiration. You can go here to read more about it. It is a role that, from our point of view, might just lie at the heart of what we are wanting to unfold there. Take a look. Pass it on. And even if you don’t want to roll up your sleeves and get cooking, we hope we will see you around the kitchen table – there are food and stories to be shared.
