The Dramaturgy of Slow Travel

I took the train from Perth, Scotland to Östersund, Sweden. The journey took me down the spine of the UK, under the channel, into the heart of the Netherlands, across the shoulders of Germany and Denmark, and from coast to coast in Sweden heading north until I reached Jämtland. Behind this trip was an endeavour to experience what slow travel for work (and leisure) could look like, expanding my ecodramaturgical practice beyond the rehearsal room and into the bodily reality of needing to move from space to space.

En route to Östersund, I stopped for two nights in Rotterdam, a single night in Osnabrück, two nights in Lund, and one night in Stockholm; a pleasant route which encompassed my “holiday” for the year. The single journey times ranged between 3 hours and 55 minutes minimum to 11 hours and 30 minutes maximum. All second class, one night train, and a range of carriage designs and layouts with some more comfortable than others. I was away for exactly 14 days. Returning home, however, was done in one fell swoop of a trip taking approximately 55 hours and 20 minutes with a single 8 hour hotel stop in Hamburg. Both outbound and return journeys were thus quite different. But each enlightening in their own ways.

Travelling in this way is not immediately accessible to many people, particularly artists. It is expensive, although potentially not as expensive as one may think, and eats up time which is either unpaid, using up annual leave, or simply unaffordable in other ways. It requires a certain amount of privilege to move slowly and by train, but considerations for the privilege of human convenience over environmental impact should also be made. From my personal pocket I paid for my interrail ticket (whilst discounted: £346), with any additional reservations fees (approximately £90 in total, mostly going to Eurostar), all my food/drink (with a planned budget of £35 a day), and the hotel stays in the Netherlands and Germany (approximately £290 across 4 nights). Costs that were covered by my theatre work were accommodation across Sweden. I do not think that I spent more than an average person going on holiday, generally estimated at approximately £1310 for a nine-night break (my trip came to around £1216 out of pocket). Had I flown from Edinburgh to Stockholm, then onwards to Östersund, I would have reached my destination within a day, but the flights along these routes wouldn’t have been that much more cheap than my interrail ticket. Flying would have an estimated carbon emission of 0.61 tonnes, whereas my train travel emitted 0.02 tonnes, although, I am somewhat sceptical about the calculator I used.

Mostly, I proved to myself that this kind of journey is not as intimidating as it first seemed, and that I could do it without the discomfort and exhaustion that I had imagined. However, bear in mind, I am an able-bodied and relatively healthy 30 year old man. Convenience culture is forced upon us, and this goes hand in hand with the hustle culture that us freelancers are inflicted with. This journey was anything but convenient, however, it was luxurious in the way that it allowed me to be still, to truly pause, and to feel free from the stress of having to be productive. “Oh, sorry, can’t do that, I’m on a train” I would think to myself every time I thought I should be working. Before leaving, I had this romantic notion that the long journeys would give me the opportunity to write something for myself, but instead I found myself mostly sitting, looking out windows, and barely thinking at all. I just existed, taking in the various landscapes across which the train and I traversed.

Given my role, one cannot think about visualising this form of slow travel through a dramaturgical lens, and how it can be re-imagined for an approach to theatre making. Scottish theatre really oscillates between the extremities of slowness and high speed: where institutional theatres can have a single script coming through a three to five year commission process before finally being produced, but then simultaneously running the whole rehearsal and production period into four weeks before a two week run. As a dramaturg, I don’t think either are healthy ways to approach theatre making sustainably. Is it financially sustainable for a writer to receive £9k over the course of three years? Is it physically and mentally sustainable for actors to learn lines, cues, rehearse positions, endure tech and dress rehearsals, receive constant feedback and then perform within six weeks?

You’d think that my many hours spent on trains would have allowed me to answer the question “what can a dramaturgy of slow travel look like?” However, I find myself instead asking it now, and using this experience as the springboard for interrogating this question in the future. I know for a fact that there are theatre companies adopting slow and collaborative processes, so I’m sure they’re the places to begin answering this question. But for now, I shall simply ruminate on the idea of a slower dramaturgy and how one can situate it within their ecodramaturgical practice. Maybe the answers will come on my next train journey…