Flashplay is Born!
4th October, 2011 - Posted by Gavin - 1 Comment
One of the action points from our Power to the People? event in May 2011 was “to take Flashplays to streets and pubs in Leith.” Well on Saturday 17th September a few of us got together to do just that!
We met in St James’ chuch hall on a sunny morning and, after a couple of wake-up coffees, we got down to the first task – defining what a Flashplay actually is! We decided that we would use influences from Flashmob, Invisible Theatre and Street Theatre and we came up with a list of criteria. A Flashplay should:
- Raise questions, provoke, agitate and educate
- Involve people from the streets as part of the Play
- Be short
- Emerge gradually and become more theatrical
- Contain elements of surprise
- Enable an audience to have a gradual realisation of what is happenning
- Use the physical environment
- Involve conflict
- Be portable
- Disperse quickly at the end
- Have element of mystery. What was pre-planned?
- Involve flyering as part of the Play to inform people about what is going on.
Then it was time to get the piece on its feet and start devising
The group start devising the world's first Flashplay
We had decided that the issue we were going to raise in the Flashplay was Edinburgh Council’s plans to privatise huge swathes of public services. Therefore we created a piece to be performed in the Kirkgate Shopping Centre at the Foot of Leith Walk. After a bit of rain the sun came out again and we were ready for the premiere!
The piece consisted of two actors brushing and marking out an area in the Kirkgate and placing two chairs in this area. Then another two actors declared that the public consultation on privatising public space was now open and invited members of the public and other actors to try out the comfy chairs for 30 seconds! People were reminded that the area was non-smoking and even came with its own personal busker! During this time other actors were talking to onlookers and handing out flyers explaining the privatisation plans. After a few minutes the trial was declared over and the actors dispersed into the shopping centre.
The plan is to perform this Flashplay again on Saturday 15th October in various locations in Leith and the City Centre so look out for us or contact us if you would like to be involved!
1 Comment
Eleni Sidiropoulou
October 15th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Fantastic means of contact with public! Loved the fun in the preparation and all the energy that runs through your body when you approach the spot…and flashplay! Looking forward to see todays action announcement 😉
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