After a busy first week of rehearsals for Manchester Sound: The Massacre, actor Stephen Fewell (who plays DJ Liberty and Henry Hunt) looks to legendary theatre practitioner Augusto Boal for inspiration…
‘X was at the Hac and wants to talk to you, to make sure you get it right…just don’t make it shit’
Responsibility. That’s been the theme over the last week. On our first rehearsal day, we all begin by sharing our own stories of when we’d stepped in, got involved, taken action, attempted to redress injustice. Taking on responsibility for something bigger than just yourself, it felt clear, is what it is to be political.
Later in the week, at our press launch, nobody present seemed uncomfortable with the idea that Peterloo was political. Radical new ideas, marshaled by the drum beat of the guilds, cut down by the oppressive forces of the constabulary. Though defeated on that day, everyone acknowledges these notions of democratic political representation are now spread across the globe. But more controversial questions follow. It becomes clear many view the Manchester acid house scene of the 80’s as the antithesis of politics; an evasion of responsibility, a selfish expression of individual hedonism.
Actors are often seen as selfish hedonists – I like to do my bit here – but when you’re playing a real person, you do feel a profound responsibility to them. Somewhere in your brain echoes the voice of a real person reminding you that they once lived and breathed all this. Sometimes they died for it. ‘You’re just pretending,’ that voice says. And when it belongs to 19th century radical and chair of the gathering at Peterloo, Henry Hunt ,famed for his eye popping, blood-stirring oratory, it’s not an easy voice to ignore.
Political theatre maker Augusto Boal called critical voices like these ‘the cop in the head’. The first step to silencing them involves a good deal of reading and research; thankfully access to this information online is easy. I spend a good deal of the week on this. All to the good, but may not be enough to silence Henry. If anything it ups the ante. Thankfully, Boal developed a range of other ways for actors to distract and defeat this inner voice; an essential step if you want to be creative or in any way radical or expressive. In both life and theatre, amidst the corrupt regimes he encountered in South America, Boal believed the biggest political threat came from this oppressive voice lurking within – the cop in the head. In everyday life, people might turn to music, dance or drugs- commonplace or otherwise- to evade it or help defeat it.
So, as well as helping me with my acting, Boal’s given me some clues to link our two historical events; the Peterloo Massacre and the 80’s Manchester club scene. Both unlocked radical and creative new ideas of personal expression and social cohesion. Both challenged oppression in times of profound disenfranchisement against an intransigent orthodoxy. And both were political. Of course, the differences between the two are also dramatic. Thankfully.
But amongst all this, I was still unprepared for the biggest weight of responsibility to come from those who’d been involved in the 80’s acid house scene itself. Those ‘irresponsible hedonists’; the clubbers, bouncers, dealers and DJ’s whose voices wittily heckle, chasten and inform via mp3 and press conference open mic.
‘Call the cops!’
Manchester Sound: The Massacre runs from Sat 8 Jun – Sat 6 Jul 2013. You can book tickets online or from Cornerhouse Box Office on 0161 200 1500.