Satyagraha, Yeast and Home
Over the last month, I’ve been privileged enough to be in a real room once again, making some theatre. Weeks of Covid tests happening every two days, singing and puppetry from behind masks in rehearsal, and then onstage at the Coliseum. Despite all the challenges, it’s been incredibly heartening to be gathered in the same room making a show again. It’s not a new show, it’s a remount of the opera Satyagraha we first made 13 years ago. A show we thought perhaps would only have a couple of outings, is now in its eighth production having also gone to the Metropolitan Opera and the LA Opera. Its journey continues and since then we have also created a production of Akhnaten, so Improbable are well on their way to mounting Glass’ portrait trilogy. Satyagraha was the first opera I ever directed even though it’s not the first one I’ve been in (that honour goes to Jonothan Dove’s wonderful Glyndebourne community opera Hastings Spring which we performed at the end of Hastings pier in 1987).
Satyagraha Puppets designed by Julian Crouch. Photo: Phelim McDermott
Anyway, why am I talking about Satyagraha, a Philip Glass opera in a blog about The Gathering? Well, it’s because they are intricately connected. Satyagraha is not really about Gandhi - it’s an opera about an idea, or a concept. Of course Gandhi played his part and indeed held a competition to give a name to the particular form of activism he championed in his protests. Mistranslated in the West as “passive resistance,” a term Gandhi disliked, “Satyagraha” actually means “Truth Force,” a word created to describe the powerful alloy which can effect change for justice when inner work is mixed with outer protest. So in one way, our production and how we we made it mirrors the collective process Gandhi was helping to facilitate. I’ve said this before, but the performers, the musicians and singers are themselves on a journey of practice involving inner and outer work when they perform this piece. Much of the opera is incredibly hard to play and sing. They are in their own way, as it says in the libretto, “Athletes of the spirit”.
When we began this remount, we talked a lot about how to ensure the work stayed alive and still retained its essence, even as a new company was put together. In opera this is a real challenge. Here was a whole company of different singers, and many of the core ensemble of puppetry performers and aerialists were new to the piece too.
Allow me a short but relevant diversion. You may well have seen the big puppets in the striking publicity shots. These were made by Julian Crouch, or rather he facilitated their creation with the original onstage skills team. Julian helped the performers create the heads and strange bodies of these figures. He oversaw the whole group and ensured with his own skill and eye that they had a visual unity. Each day at the start of rehearsals, 13 years ago, the ENO chorus would walk through the old sound recording studio in the basement of the West Hampstead rehearsal space (where the Beatles had been turned down by Decca), and stared in bewilderment at the performers surrounded by piles of willow sticks, newspaper and copydex, and the look on their faces often said, “What the hell is going on here?” Then, by the opening night of the show, they saw the performers animating the large-scale puppets which they had made. These puppets were in part a tribute by Julian to his own puppetry lineage: Peter Schumann of The Bread and Puppet Theatre of Vermont made monumental puppets which marched the streets of The USA, protesting against the Vietnam War, in his words: “Louder than the traffic." Years ago, Julian told me he did a workshop, courtesy of The International Workshop Festival, with Schumann in Belfast. He told me what they did on that workshop: they spent most of their time kneading dough and making bread. Bread that had been made using the mother yeast, and was shared at their performances.
Puppets under construction. Designed by Julian Crouch. Photo: Phelim McDermott
How do we maintain the spirit of a show beyond its opening? How do we maintain the natural creativity of a company so that it continues to unfold and keep rising and falling in a natural way, so that the practice does not die but can be passed on in a precious way? How do you look after the yeast?
So Satyagraha has now opened and, in the blink of an eye, because it's opera, has closed after just seven shows. Audiences have been enjoying the shows but have also been responding particularly to the collaborative ensemble within the performances. With Improbable, our home has always been our rehearsal rooms and our stages. Most of the time those physical spaces belong to other organisations. The company spirit that we engender whilst making our shows aims to create a sense of belonging for all those involved. This doesn’t end at the performers, it often goes beyond it to many parts of the organisations with which we work. This morning, as the show closes, I feel the sense of grief that often arises as our company goes its separate ways.
I find myself once again returning to the very important dream Improbable have of finding a home that doesn't disappear when a show ends. The need for a space that holds and maintains this continuity of spirit seems more and more essential in this time. For those of you who saw the opera this would be Improbable’s version of “Tolstoy Farm”. This will be a place for deepening, sharing and sustaining an arts practice. A place for gathering and protecting the ineffable.
In this short podcast Matilda and I talk with Ben Yeoh about some of ideals for this space and remind you that next weekend Improbable will be holding an Open Space event to ask, “What is home? What is Belonging?” These are important questions for us, but they may also be resonant for you in these times. Do join us.