Jo Elsworth
Contribution on
Bristol Day: Live Art Oral History, 30 April 2007
The Theatre Collection
The Theatre Collection is the UKs 2nd largest theatre history archive.
We have 3 components- a library, an archive and a museum. Each
operate to different professional standards and bodies, and so
the interplay between them is quite interesting at times. Museums
are object and interpretation led –often mixing objects/items
from different collections to tell a story, archives are preservation
led-respecting the provenance of groups of items, and library –information
management –where the information held within rather than
the items themselves are key. This all affects how we care for
, document and provide access to our collections.
The TC has a broad collecting remit – British theatre history.
The earliest item is a map of London - pre globe dated 1575, and
the most recent are just a few weeks old- mini DV recordings of the
National Review of Live Art from Feb this year. Our holdings are
large. If we placed the archive boxes and drawers full of artwork
in a line they would stretch for over 5 miles. The archive is made
up of approx 100 separate archive collections relating to theatre
companies, individuals associated with the theatre: actors, directors,
designers etc and “artificial” collections that we have
deliberately set out to create and build ourselves e.g. programme,
design collections. Some of the archives have international standing
as major research archives. I’m thinking here of Welfare State
International , Herbert Beerbohm Tree and London Old Vic. However,
it is some of the smaller collections that have the greatest richness.
Our small collection of oral history recordings is one such example.
More about why this is so later.
Historically we have concentrated on traditional theatre (white,
middle class ABC1 if you like) but in recent years we’ve made
a conscious effort to be more representative and have included popular
theatre, musicals, community theatre and most recently Live Art.
In 2006 our acquisition policy took a more radical departure from
the norm, with the addition of the Live Art Archives from Nottingham
Trent University. This suite of archives comprises National Review
of Live Art, Digital Performance Archive, Record of Live Art Performance
Performance Magazine and others. The ,archives are interesting in
that they originally started out with a specific purpose in mind –to
find out what was happening in the field of Live Art and provide
a record of it. As such, they were predominately event led (working
like a reference library to tell you what happened, when and where),
so the item itself that held this information was only a means to
an end. Since coming to Bristol the emphasis has shifted to the item
being intrinsically important in its own right as well as for the
information it contains. This has come about because of our role
as a museum and archive; where the object/item is fundamentally important
to all that museums do. For most museums and many archives the objects
relate to something real, touchable, tangible. Of course this has
particular ramifications as regards something as ephemeral as performance
where the objects can only ever tell part of the story. And the event
itself can never be recreated. In order to effectively document performance
wherever possible we need to include systematic collecting of both
tangible and intangible elements. For us, the role that oral history
plays in achieving this is absolutely key.
An exploration of what oral history can bring to performance documentation
is particularly timely because of the emerging global recognition
of the importance of intangible cultural heritage. For museums, we
now require an acquisition policy that actively embraces contemporary
collecting and seeks to place objects within their social and cultural
context. –the intangible framework in which they function
If we take a step back to look at what museums and archives traditionally
deal with we get to tangible heritage. By its very nature the tangible
cultural heritage is defined by its physicality, or material, basis.
Until recently, particularly in the Western World, it has been the
physical (tangible) entity, that that his taken primacy in terms
of recognition and protection (examples include sites and monuments,
historic landscapes and townscapes and also objects, artefacts and
documents). A prompt book, a script or production photos are good
examples of tangible cultural heritage. They may also carry some
intangible meanings too, and we’ll look at this with Stephanie
Cole’s archives later. Collecting tangible heritage has a long
history. Since the development of museums in the nineteenth century,
it has been a key, and defining, characteristic of museums.
Today, the emphasis is shifting and whilst the object-as-tangible-evidence
remains important, the intangibles that accompany it are increasing
acknowledged. These set the cultural and social context within which
the object was created, used and belonged.
The driving force behind current developments in the intangible cultural
heritage has been a series of UNESCO initiatives, cumulating in the
Convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage adopted
on 17 October 2003 .The Convention followed a long, slow period of
evolution of thinking about intangible culture, much of which, until
then, was outside of the Western World’s conceptualisation
of heritage.
In the nineties UNESCO developed a Living Human Treasures Programme
(1993) and then, developing out of this, the Proclamation of Masterpieces
of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (1998). Both of these
encompassed the performing arts, for example the masterpieces included
the Elche Mystery Play, Valencia, where language, medieval machinery,
actors and spectators combine to carry on the performed tradition
of Medieval drama.
The convention covers five domains; oral traditions
and expressions (language, myth, songs, games, genealogies), performing
arts, social practices, rituals and festive events; knowledge and
practices concerning nature and the universe and traditional craftsmanship
(UNESCO Convention 2003 (Article 2 definitions). We can immeadiately
see how ‘performance’ sits across these domains.
However it’s more complicated than this because the Performing
Arts are among the most ephemeral of human activities. When considering
intangible cultural heritage theatre museums are faced with an additional,
crucial question - given the intangible nature of performance itself
how can any theatre archive or museum capture the very intangibility
of performance?
Interestingly, this debate has recently been at the forefront of
issues concerning the future of the Theatre Museum, London. Charles
Spencer, theatre critic writes ‘the museum also has the problem
of presenting what is known in the trade as ‘intangible heritage’.
It can’t show theatre itself, as other museums can present
painting or a vase, but only objects associated with its subject.
How do you exhibit the unexhibitable?’ (Spencer, 2006).
Given that the performance does not survive as an object with a life
of its own, the only option is to gather records and artefacts, generated
by, or associated with, live performance and its processes and contexts’.
This shortcoming is a compelling reason for also systematically gathering
the processes, know-how and traditions that lie behind the event,
and that, in itself forms the intangible history of the intangible
event.
There are tangible objects used in theatre (which can subsequently
be exhibited) but these are secondary to the intangible nature of
the performance itself. A performance event takes place in a very
particular place and time and is the result of a unique combination
of elements. These include tangible elements (such as text, sets,
props, costumes), and less tangible ones such as the contributions
of the creative teams and staff at all levels and in all areas. Finally,
and most intangibly, there are audience members and their individual
experiences of the event. (Stone, 2004:7). When a performance is
over the tangible elements are dispersed (some to an archive, some
reused, some destroyed) and the thread that links these items back
together is the intangible experience. In the TC, Laurence Olivier’s
gloves provide a good example of the interrelatedness of intangibility
to performance. The iconic white gloves are important not because
they are gloves but because Olivier wore them as Archie Rice in the
very first production of The Entertainer. They symbolise much of
that character and the play as well as the actor playing the role.
The gloves as items in isolation do not however help us understand
the performance
In addition to the intangible nature of the performance itself there
is the social and cultural framework in which it is performed. This
affects how the audience, and later the museum visitor, receives
and understands it. While the event is within living memory the social
and cultural context is known and so this sheds light, consciously
or subconsciously, on the event. However when looking back through
time, either from now into the past, or in the future back to now,
it is crucial that the social and cultural background is documented.
This is another facet of the intangible heritage that must be collected
For some performances such as Live Art and other non text based, durational work,
the performance is the history, and without that it might be argued that there
is nothing. These works frequently have no set, no props, no design and no written
script. They often centre on the artists body and the audience reaction to it,
and the work may well never be repeated. For work of such a transitory nature
the only way to document it is to record the event through video or mini dv.
Even this cannot capture the essence of the liveness of the event and the interrelationship
between the artist/performer and audience/viewer.
Oral history
The TC holdings contain many archives which document the life and work of individuals.
It makes sense to run an oral history project in conjunction with this. The TC
project was set up in 2001, with financial support from the Friends. A small
scale project –purchase of a minidisk the only real outlay. Interviews
were set up on an ad hoc basis –with a coupe of volunteers doing most of
the interviews. Occasionally TC staff did them but other pressures on their time
severely limited this. We have competed 42 interviews . A variety of people:
actors and also most importantly people whose work often goes undocumented –scenic
artists, stage door, and curators/theatre admin.
We nnow have a policy that when archives are acquired in a subject’s lifetime
they should be asked to record an oral history interview. The interview should
explore the undocumented aspects of their work. That is, not the ‘what,
when, where’ (which is recoverable via theatre programmes and other documents
in the archive) but the ‘why and how’ (that can only be recovered
from personal recollection). The interviews will record supplementary information
about what lies behind the archive material (thoughts, feelings, processes, unrecorded
technical skill and techniques). The oral history interviews have their own problems:
while they might give a frank account, they are subject to DPA and other sensitivities.
Stephanie Cole talking about working with a particular director is interesting
case (and not isolated one). She was very frank, and signed a release form allowing
us to broadcast it, but I wouldn’t be happy to as it is rather defamatory.
The role of IPR and moral rights also play their part enabling in access to oral
history. One unpredicted benefit in the oral history project has been that we
have, almost inadvertently, recorded the last generation of classically trained
actors’ voices. It is only through audio visual media that this otherwise
intangible aspect of performance will be recorded.
Lastly lets look sat these objects see what is tangible, what they carry that’s
intangible what remains and what is missing from the story when told by the objects
rather than the performance itself.
Jo Elsworth
