Pandora's Box at the Oval House

Godfrey Brandt, Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck University of London, writes for OBV about the closure of Pandora’s Box at the Oval House Theatre and what it means for Black theatre productions.

It was, to say the least, disappointing to find out the fact of and the facts surrounding the cancellation of Solanke‘s Pandora’s box’ at the Oval House Theatre and its impact on the season London via Lagos, which had involved a substantial investment on the part of the Arts Council, the producers, the artists and eventually the potential audience who had booked to see the play. I was shocked to realise that such a happening could take place in the modern London theatre scene and especially at Oval House who even now, represent themselves a beacon for the production and promotion of diverse theatre and Black theatre in particular.

The emergence of ‘Black theatre’ as a form has been slow at every level, whether as plays with Black people in them, plays from a Black perspective, plays with Black themes or increasingly plays written by Black authors. Equally significant has been the emergence of Black British female playwrights. It seemed, therefore, most important that this refreshing (albeit just emerging) phenomenon should be encouraged, especially in the light of the Arts Council’s sustained theatre report, which was seeking to highlight the history of Black people in this country, the lack of a ‘sustainable infrastructure for the support, development and employment of artists from those backgrounds, and the fact that:

"…today’s cultural institutions still feel awkward about engaging fully with the descendants of those early settlers."

Whence, because of these factors, I had great initial delight in finding out about the proposed season at the Oval House.

For the record, as I have discovered, whereas the Oval House have been attributing the cancellation of Pandora’s Box, the lead play in the season, to the withdrawal of the rights to the play by the author (and co-producer and to artistic differences; the fact is that there were legitimate differences of views about the production. These differences, though impinging on the artistic values of the production had equally to do with the ‘politics of representation’ an issue not insignificant in the production of Black theatre.

The author had objected to an aspect of the set design (cell like bars), imagery loaded with implicit tones of a racist and socially loaded narrative, given the fact of an all Black cast, including young male Londoners. To make some of the implicit issues explicit. The ‘ape’ (caged animal) jibe is still a common one used by overt racists towards Black people. Equally sensitive is the fact that institutional processes have created a criminal system in which Black young men are over represented in the penal system. Thus a cell like/cage like visual reference can be (and probably would be) perceived as heavily loaded. Anyone who represents this as over-sensitive can be assumed to be at best naïve to the language of theatre and visual artistic representation, or an apologist for racism and at worst themselves a purveyor of these racist ideologies.

Over my career in the arts, I am unaware of a play that has been produced without some sort of conflict; sometimes this conflict is most intense. Conflict is, after all, the stuff of drama. Lack of conflict is rare. But the circumstance in which any production is cancelled is even rarer and should represent a total breakdown of the remote possibility of a timely and considered production of quality.

As far as I can gather, there was nothing irretrievable or irreversible in the condition of the production of Pandora’s Box. The actors were well rehearsed and keen to go on. The Director had no stated qualms about the quality of the production. The writer having stated her concerns about some of the visual content and context of the set design had agreed to proceed. In fact, was keen for the production to go ahead. Yet the theatre proceeded with the cancellation, which it had previously announced on grounds which are at best spurious and at worst, no friend of the truth. This forces the dispassionate onlooker to ask the question. What was the agenda of this so called ‘mainstream’ liberal theatre in taking this path? Is it what is stated in their controlled public statement or, on the other hand is it what it seems to be.

The exciting and timely theatre project ‘Lagos via London’ was a pioneering production, in being entirely by Black (including two female) authors, while apparently addressing the concerns of the sustained theatre report. It was therefore absolutely astounding that it should be unilaterally cancelled over ‘artistic differences’ as stated by the theatre management.

The relationships between the various artists involved in a theatrical production are usually, at best delicate and sometimes tempestuous, especially when those artists have to face each other day after day, within a context of mutual responsibility and accountability: It is even more tempestuous when these artistic issues are overlaid by the political.

The Politics of Black theatre in the UK is about more than the narrative, the performance or artistic interpretation of the text but about the imagery, the interpretative frame and the demonstrable power relations of production. To move us forward as a nation and to address the stated intentions of the Sustained Theatre Report, this relationship must be constantly negotiated to ensure collaboration not coercion. It cannot be bulldozed into position into a pattern which simply props up the status quo but must be about transformation, empowerment and cultural exchange in a context of equality and justice.

As the sustained Theatre report stated:

There is now no excuse for being unaware … (of) the history and the presence in Britain of people of African, Asian, Caribbean and East Asian descent (stretching) back over several centuries…

Nor, one might argue, is there any excuse for standing in the way of transformation and development of new British narratives that are Black but equally empowered for being an expression and representation, not dependent on liberal ‘mainstream’ mediation but on a received conception of equal citizenship.

Godfrey Brandt

Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck University of London, former theatre director, teacher, researcher, university lecturer/researcher and the Founder and former Programme director of the Arts Management Programme at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the Director of Couvade Consultants.