Synthesis: Joint Stock's Fanshen (Case Study)

A remark by Mark Ravenhill in his introduction to Shopping and Fucking suggests that producer Max Stafford-Clark does not take a generic approach to script development. Acknowledging that the script, as printed, doesn't reflect the script as performed, he expresses excitement about an ecstasy workshop (Ravenhill, 1996). Stafford-Clark appears to use a script as a foundation for workshops, which then produce the final version.

Max Stafford-Clark

In an interview with Duska Radosavljevic, Stafford-Clark admits that ‘my influence has really been the hippie American companies – The Open Theatre, The Living Theatre and the LA MaMa’ (Radosavjjevic, 2013 p65). His work of the early 1970s, a cut-up version of Heathcote William's The Speakers and Fanshen, an adaptation of William Hinton's epic study of a single village during the Chinese cultural revolution was explicitly political and followed a collectivist process of creation. 

Although Dave Hare wrote the script - and the production has been interpreted as 'scripted theatre' since its 1975 premiere - the initial process was a series of workshops, with actors engaging with the texts and its ideas about social change and equality. While Hare disavows the importance of these workshops – he refers to the spirit rather than the detail of the activities as influential (Hare 1991, p68) – Joan FitzPatrick Dean counters that the production was ‘infused by a communal and non-hierarchical spirit… the evolution of the dramatic text owes much to the idealism of Hare, his directors and the company’ (FitzPatrick Dean, 1990).

Stafford-Clark’s diary details the frustrating workshop and rehearsal periods, which reveal a dialectical approach to source material and to the company’s creativity (Roberts & Stafford-Clark, 2007, p30-43). Actor Pauline Melville identified one strategy that is reflected in Hare’s final script, which is preoccupied with the discussions of policy within the village.

One of the ideas that we adopted from the book and gradually absorbed into our way of working was the notion of discussing everything through until it was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction without taking votes. (Roberts & Stafford-Clark, 2007, p32)

The difficulty of a collaborative process is highlighted, especially in the descriptions of the bickering in the rehearsal.

A bit of directorial conflict. ‘It’s not finished,’ said Roderick. ‘It is,’ said Bill. ‘It isn’t.’ Very hard. We can’t all direct at once…

Part of the problem is that we have no collective purpose in undertaking the show and not even a cohesive and united idea of what theatre should be like. (ibid, p33)

Hare’s later comment that ‘an openly political way of working only pays off with dialectical material’ (cited in FitzPatrick Dean 1990, p. 35) implicitly acknowledges the process of the script's creation and the style of the script, which is a series of discussions around how the Chinese revolution was being expressed through social changes in the village, reflects a dialectical process that echoes the workshop atmosphere. 

Hare argued that the violent parts of the original book were 'undramatic,' but in stripping these away, he leaves behind a series of conversations. This not only offers a way for the audience to experience a dialectic process, it removes 'emotionalism' of traditional dramatic narrative, marked by moments of excitement and reversal. Michael Billington notes the effect.

It offers hard prosaic detail: and instead of showing revolution as a glamorous overnight process, it reminds one that there is only the patient daily work of remaking people… a model example of objectivity, clarity and discussion that transforms noble ideas into a living reality. (The Guardian Aug 15, 1975)

Stafford-Clark, discussing verbatim theatre, offers another clue.

You remember Madonna had a fashion of wearing underclothes outside her clothes? Verbatim’s a bit like that – you’re flashing your research. (ibid p 69)

Hare was flashing his process when he scripted Fanshen. 

Examining this process, through the recollections of the creators, suggests that Fanshen was an attempt to address the problem discussed in Heddon and Milling’s Devising Performance, of reconciling the skill of the playwright with the democratic leanings of devised theatricality.

Anthithesis: Developments in British Theatre