Aesthetics, Affect and Applied Theatre; Wan Smolbag Theatre and the Development of Vanuatu

Abstract

During the last 10-15 years, a great deal of scholarship has appeared on the topics of “applied theatre” and “theatre for development”, two of the more commonly used umbrella terms for theatre practices that are associated with relatively explicit social objectives in areas such as education, health, human rights and environmental awareness. Much of the research in this field has focused narrowly on monitoring and evaluation, with a view to establishing empirical evidence for the efficacy of applied theatre practices. However, some scholars and practitioners have recently called for more attention to be paid to the aesthetics of their performances, arguing that these are inextricably linked with any intended development outcomes. Taking up this challenge, this thesis asks: If aesthetics (as everyday uses of the word often imply) have something to do with the appreciation of artistic forms, then where is an audience’s sensitivity to such forms generated in the first place? When theatre is resonant, what are the other cultural practices with which it is resonating? When audiences want to participate, what are the forms of participation for which their culture has helped to prepare them, and to which the theatre makers must orient themselves, in order to have any hope of engaging them? In pursuing this line of questioning I conducted six weeks of ethnographic participant-observation on the rehearsals and performances of a “big play” called Zero Balans, staged by Wan Smolbag Theatre (WSB). WSB is a major Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO) located in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, and arguably the longest running Theatre for Development (TfD) initiative in the region. It operates not only in purpose-built theatre settings, but also brings performances to schools and villages, popular radio and TV, as well as developing grassroots programmes in youth, health, education, the environment and good governance. While all their projects warrant attention, and are considered in the thesis, the big play proved particularly useful as a stimulus for research into the questions surrounding aesthetics because, on the surface, it flouts two dominant ideas in the TfD field. These two ideas being the preference for process-oriented participatory work and the perceived benefits of pressing local, indigenous cultural forms into the service of educational and developmental goals. The thesis argues that WSB successfully meld more-or-less conventional mainstream Western theatre aesthetics with a Melanesian sensibility in accordance with a shifting, contemporary Melanesian context. On the one hand, these forms have been sufficiently adapted as to recall many characteristics of “traditional” ni-Vanuatu cultural practices. On the other hand, they remain sufficiently “foreign” as to allow WSB to mount a sometimes very direct critique of social issues. In this way, WSB’s work fits with a wider pattern of cultural renewal and innovation that we can trace across other artforms in the country. The thesis also argues that, despite WSB—in their big plays—eschewing the most commonly adopted forms of process-based participatory theatre (playback, forum, et cetera), the big plays can still be understood as highly charged, emotional, affective, embodied, intercorporeal, engagements; because rather than seeking merely formal features of participation, WSB has worked effectively for many years to build from the bottom up, creating and sustaining long-term relationships. Taken together, the arguments of the thesis suggest that we need to enlarge our understanding of what we mean by participatory theatre and encourages greater experimentation with “non-canonical” applied theatre forms. To support these endeavours, the field needs more ethnographic studies; studies, which not only identify the variety of forms that applied theatre can take in different locations, but also model for TfD practitioners who work in these different locations, the deep forms of engagement which must occur upstream of performances, namely the building of relationships.