on-cue - article - wanda theatre - the theatrical wing of words and action, Wimborne

WANDA THEATRE

R G GREGORY - Founder of Word in Action
Explains the rationale behind their theatrical wing.

The problem with Wanda Theatre is that it is not an amateur company; but neither is it a conventional professional company.

Word And Action has been in full-time paid existence since Dec. 1972, but it differes from all other companies, professional or amateur, in its concept of the relationship between actor and audience. It works always in-the-round (a form I've been completely committed to since the late nineteen-fifties).

Its scripted-work productions, which mostly involve plays, but also take in the dramatised presentation of poems (we've recently done The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Intimations of Immortality and Shelley's Ode to a Skylark amongst others), use ordinary room lighting, no make-up, few properties, a form of dress which has all its actors in black trousers, black socks and black plimsoles, with only above-the-waist indicating any character definition (and this always in clothes obtainable from the actor's own wardrobe or purchased from a local charity shop).

The only attempt at a setting is provided by the use of a few rostra (usually symbolically coloured) or other simple furniture. Language is at the core of all Wanda Productions and the text is treated as more or less sacrosanct. The company's recent production of Miss Julie was done within all these precepts.

Word And Action survives not on its scripted productions, although Wanda's work is crucial to an understanding of the company, but on its performances of Instant Theatre, probably in the region of twenty-five thousand such since the company's start, in venues all over the British Isles and mainland Europe, with occasional forays into the rest of the world (Japan, Thailand, Australia, Israel, USA).

Instant Theatre is participatory theatre of a different kind from most presentations that are lumped into that category. In Instant Theatre, the audience (through a strictly neutral and voluntary question-and-answer process) creates the story of the play to be performed, and then is invited to join in its acting-out. The story created by the process has the qualities of a dream, and its performance is usually both hilarious and gripping. It's a style of theatre that has been equally successful with nursery-school children, all levels of normal school attendees, youth and adult groups, third-age audiences, day centres, and every form of disability gathering.

The acting demands of Instant Theatre are in direct contradiction to those inculcated in drama schools; conventionally-trained actors find the work difficult to cope with - and this means that the performances of Wanda Theatre feed off a sense of theatre-space and audience-relationship requiring a changed view of what it is to be an actor. Those involved in its productions are mostly present or ex-members of Word And Action, fully tuned to what the requirements of this kind of theatre are.

It maybe therefore that Wanda Theatre falls outside the remit of your website. The Round Festival, though, is open to any company (professional, amateur or whatever) that is interested in working in the round. Next year's Festival is also to be in Wimborne - and any help you can give to publicising that, and maybe encouraging people living locally to take part, either as performers or general participants, would be greatly welcomed. Anne Jennings is the person still to contact with regard to that events. Almost certainly there will be companies from Ghana, the States, and maybe from the Far East, attending the 2002 event (to be held from Wed July 24th to Sunday July 28th).

R G GREGORY