When speaking to people who want to learn more about dramaturgy, or aspire to start their dramaturgical career, I always recommend they advocate to be in the rehearsal room for the entirety of the project. The reality looks slightly different in my own practice for myriad reasons, but it comes from a genuine belief that a dramaturg should always be present. Given my background in ethnology, I also speak of dramaturgy as a curatorial practice. And this still is the perspective I carry in my work. However, the Developing Northern Dramaturgies project has made me consider the role of the dramaturg, particularly in the rehearsal room, as that of a landscaper.
The context behind this new perspective is based around the conversations that the project’s core team had surrounding the nature of urban stories and those from traditional cultures rooted in the natural environment. Aisling Ghéar take a proud stance to tell Belfast-focused urban stories in the Irish language that developed in and around the cityscape. There is a sense of stepping away from the traditions of a rural Irish imaginaries to make work that speaks more directly to the experiences of the audiences in their home city. Meanwhile, both in Scotland and Sápmi, there appears to be a feeling caught between the traditional rural experiences of Gaelic (crofting) and Sámi (herding) culture and the more contemporary urban/sub-urban realities of many assimilated members of these communities.
The tension between the urban and the rural/traditional and the modern can also be found in the language. Where so many idioms are shaped by a particular landscape and environment the culture too is a direct relationship with these spaces. Loan words might be used, or language is stretched and developed to embrace the more new urban experiences and environs and then too culture moulds itself around these newer man-made spaces. A dramaturg then needs to be able to relate the way that narrative, language, and the cultures that are carried in text are grounded in these tensions, and require a translation to the stage. A different, or a reimagined environment is being built in the performance, and the audience are required to understand this landscape. This space requires to be imagined by the director, the actors, the designer, and the stage managers. A dramaturg is primed to maintain and sustain this environment and ensure that all involved are creating the same space. And on top of this, the dramaturg needs to be aware of and help shape the landscape of the rehearsal room. In many ways, they can act as a mediator, or the person who sets boundaries and supports the needs of the group to ensure professional borders don’t leak into each other.
Giron Sámi Teáhter have found that during the rehearsal process, the actors who are the primary Sámi representation in the rehearsal room have to use a portion of their rehearsal time teaching/sharing knowledge about the indigenous culture instead of being the actor led by the director. In many ways, this can be a sound method under a collaborative production, however, as finances and the necessities of modern living can interrupt rehearsal schedules, it is not always optimal for an actor to also be the dramaturg, the teacher, the cultural ambassador.
Thus, a dramaturg might have to rely on notions of landscaping. If the practice of landscaping is one that alters, transforms, or works to enhance an environment, whether through building, arranging, or ornamentalising, then so too must a dramaturg carry this perspective. A culture is shaped by its direct environment. A language is used to describe the environment and its phenomena. A performance speaks of people and place, presents it in an artistic theatrical manner. A rehearsal room becomes an environment that needs to be maintained. Whilst everyone involved in a theatrical project has a responsibility over these elements, expectations on an actor, director, designer, maker, stage manager, stage hand, shouldn’t exceed the roles they’re probably not being paid enough to do. A dramaturg can support in this field, for they are the carriers of the artistic vision, the ones to help keep rehearsals on track, to ensure the team have the knowledge they need.
As a side note, sometimes I do reject this constant describing/shaping dramaturgy as something else (like landscaping or curating) when it should really just be dramaturgy. However, given the nature of the modern dramaturg’s role, it requires a fluidity, an ability to suit the needs of a text, idea, project plan, etc. And as such, sometimes it is easier to describe it to an outsider as something other. Some may feel this devalues the actual craft of dramaturgy, but I’m of the opinion that it’s already been devalued to near extinction, so why not rebuild it as something useful and easy for others to understand and connect to. It’s about democratising dramaturgy… although I appreciate I am then prone to dress it up in very undemocratic language. Alas!
Whilst I think that this turn towards considering a dramaturgy inspired by landscaping was designed by this particular project, I also believe that it feels like a logical next step in my practice. Influenced by concepts relating to eco-dramaturgy, a practice situated clearly in the climate crisis and resonant with the natural world, my perspective could be attuned to the process of landscaping. This also feeds into my belief that theatre has a history of modernist detachment to the natural world and that dramaturgy has also played a role in this. Landscaping shares a history, shaping the wild natural world into something manicured, constructed, and illusory. As landscapers too begin to confront the climate crisis, finding common ground could only make the dramaturg’s practice stronger.
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