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Welcome to The Jungle: Performing Borders and Belonging in Contemporary British Migration Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2020

EMMA WELTON
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Abstract

This article explores the political and ethical implications of performance representing the ongoing realities of migration in contemporary Britain. Using Good Chance Theatre's The Jungle (2018) as its point of departure, the article problematizes the use of dramaturgies of proximity to confect simplistic notions of empathy as tantamount to political change. In a Brechtian vein, the article argues for modes of distanciation to foster critical engagement among audiences at the site of contemporary performance on migration. Focusing upon the production's West End transfer, its use of immersive strategies and its use of a comedic model to address ongoing issues in migration, this article finds that such strategies are not as politically transgressive as marketing and critical reception often contend them to be, with the onus of responsibility placed solely upon the individual spectator.

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Theatre Research International , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , October 2020 , pp. 230 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2020

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Footnotes

Thank you to Dr Dirk Gindt for providing such thoughtful insight and support as I developed this piece from papers originally written for his seminars in autumn 2018. My deepest gratitude to the Leverhulme Trust for their support with a Study Abroad Studentship from 2018 to 2019 so I could pursue my master's education. Thank you to Dr Fintan Walsh, Dr Tanya Dean and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their enormously helpful feedback, improving this article greatly. A huge thanks to Marc Brenner for granting permission to use his fantastic images of The Jungle. Finally, thank you to Ulrika Pettersson, Antoine Hirel and Joanna Mason for reading this work at various stages, and for discussing it with such care and attention.

References

NOTES

2 The Treaty of Le Touquet, agreed between the British and French governments in 2003, established juxtaposed controls at the respective border crossings in the UK and France. This, according to the House of Lords European Committee, has had a direct impact upon undocumented migrants and refugees attempting to claim asylum in the UK, as they are prohibited by the border control erected in Calais, France. This has led to the establishment of the many informal refugee camps which have existed in Calais over the past two decades. See Parliament, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeucom/428/42806.htm#footnote-126-backlink, accessed 16 June 2020. In more recent years, an amendment to the Immigration Bill in 2016 ensured that three thousand unaccompanied children could claim asylum in the UK every year. In 2020, however, this was voted down in Parliament.

3 For example, the 2016–17 Horizons programme at the Young Vic and a number of theatre companies dedicated to making work with, about and for migrant communities, such as LegalAlien Theatre, Phosphorous Theatre and Maison Foo.

4 National Theatre, www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/jungle-playhouse-theatre, accessed 9 June 2020.

5 See promotional and reception materials which example this: Sophie Gilbert, ‘The Spectacular Humanity of The Jungle’, The Atlantic, 24 December 2017, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/12/the-jungle-young-vic/548909, accessed 25 April 2020; Frank Scheck, ‘“The Jungle”: Theater Review’ Hollywood Reporter, 9 December 2018, www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/the-jungle-theater-1167809, accessed 25 April 2020; National Theatre (n. 2 above); and Umberto Bacchi, ‘West End Theater Turns Migrant Camp to Get London Audience Talking’, Reuters, 20 June 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-migrants-play/west-end-theater-turns-migrant-camp-to-get-london-audience-talking-idUSKBN1JG2ZT, accessed 25 April 2020.

6 Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy, The Jungle, dir. Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, performances by Ammar Haj Ahmad, Ben Turner, John Pfumojena et al. Good Chance Theatre Company, 2 August 2018, Playhouse Theatre, London.

7 Berlant, Lauren, Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 4Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

8 The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Westminster, a neighbourhood perceived as symbolic of political power in the UK.

9 Ahmed, Sara, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), p. 133Google Scholar.

10 Murphy, Joe and Robertson, Joe, The Jungle (London: Faber and Faber, 2018)Google Scholar.

11 I use the term ‘comedic migrant’ from Yana Meerzon's definition of the character type. This is a concept I will expand upon later in the article. See Meerzon, Yana, ‘From Melancholic to Happy Immigrant: Staging Simpleton in the Comedies of Migration’, Performing Ethos, 9 (2019), pp. 23–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 25.

12 Paul Mason, ‘The Jungle: An Urgent Play Gives a Voice to Refugees’, New Statesman, 5 July 2018, www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2018/07/jungle-urgent-play-gives-voice-refugees, accessed 25 April 2020.

13 See, for media describing The Jungle as a misfit in the West End, Dominic Cavendish, ‘The Jungle Review, Playhouse Theatre – The Most Important Play in the West End’, The Telegraph, 8 July 2018, www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/jungle-review-playhouse-theatre-important-play-west-end, accessed 25 April 2020; and Hannah Beckerman, ‘Sonia Friedman: ‘Sexist Guys? It's Not Their Time Any More’, Financial Times, 5 October 2018, www.ft.com/content/0bdd5152-c69a-11e8-ba8f-ee390057b8c9, accessed 25 April 2020.

14 See, for example, Lynette Goddard's discussion of the Arts Council England's report Eclipse: Developing Strategies to Combat Racism in the Theatre in 2002: ‘The recommendations suggested strategies designed to overturn assumptions of certain types of work as high risk’. Goddard, Lynette, Staging Black Feminisms: Identity, Politics, Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Sonia Friedman in Mason, ‘The Jungle’, n.p.

16 Lamont-Bishop, Olivia, ‘Four Thoughts on Place and The Jungle’, Performing Ethos, 9 (2019), pp. 105–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 106.

17 Savran, David, ‘Shadows of Brecht’, in Reinelt, Janelle G. and Roach, Joseph R., eds., Critical Theory and Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), pp. 268–83Google Scholar, here p. 275.

18 The Young Vic, www.youngvic.org/taking-part, accessed 17 June 2020.

19 User Emily W in Alice Saville, ‘“The Jungle” Review’, Time Out, 6 July 2018, www.timeout.com/london/theatre/the-jungle-review, accessed 25 April 2020.

20 Twitter users @dannyboyfriar and @J9RAE79 in ‘The Jungle at the Playhouse Theatre: Audience Reactions’, National Theatre on YouTube, 20 July 2018, https://youtu.be/rQNSeiFSAm0, accessed 26 April 2020.

21 Dolan, Jill, ‘Chapter One: Introduction: Feeling the Potential of Elsewhere’, in Dolan, Utopia in Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008), pp. 1–34Google Scholar, here p. 11.

22 Ibid., p. 7.

23 Alston, Adam, Beyond Immersive Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics and Productive Participation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 7.

25 National Theatre Wales, www.nationaltheatrewales.org/ntw_shows/tidewhisperer-2, accessed 26 April 2020.

26 Ruth Comerford, ‘LegalAliens’ Lara Parmiani: “We Want to Get a Different Perspective on Migration”’, The Stage, 24 February 2020, www.thestage.co.uk/features/legalaliens-lara-parmiani-we-want-to-get-a-different-perspective-on-migration, accessed 18 May 2020.

27 The Cultural Frontline, ‘Understanding the Refugee Crisis Via Virtual Reality’, BBC Sounds, (02:06), 6 August 2016, www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0430f89, accessed 26 April 2020.

28 Ibid. (03:09).

29 Alston, Beyond Immersive Theatre, p. 11.

30 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, p. 138.

31 Ibid.

32 Brecht, Bertolt in Marc Silberman, ‘Bertolt Brecht, Politics, and Comedy’, Social Research, 79, 1 (Spring 2012), pp. 169–88Google Scholar, here p. 169.

33 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudlesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Urbana, IL: Project Gutenberg, 2002), www.gutenberg.org/files/4352/4352-h/4352-h.htm, accessed 26 April 2020.

34 For examples of how the National Theatre has been critiqued for its representations of immigration see Michael Billington, ‘England People Very Nice’, The Guardian, 12 February 2009, www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/feb/12/england-people-very-nice-review, accessed 25 April 2020; and Susannah Clapp, ‘My Country: A Work in Progress Review – A Laudable but Limp Look at Brexit Britain’, The Observer, 19 March 2017, www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/19/my-country-work-in-progress-dorfman-observer-review, accessed 25 April 2020. One example where the theatre was celebrated in its representations of immigration was Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Andrea Levy's novel Small Island, which had a sold-out run at the theatre in 2019 and was broadcast online in June 2020. The play explores the Windrush generation of Jamaicans who moved to Britain during the mid-twentieth century, dramatizing some of the racism and hardships faced by Jamaicans in the UK.

35 Ava Wong Davies, ‘Edinburgh Fringe Review: Sh!t Theatre Drink Rum with Expats’, Exeunt Magazine, 12 August 2019, www.exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/edinburgh-fringe-review-sht-theatre-drink-rum-expats, accessed 30 April 2020.

36 Meerzon, ‘From Melancholic to Happy Immigrant’, p. 28.

37 Ibid, p. 25.

38 Robertson and Murphy, The Jungle, p. 95.

39 Ibid.

40 Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, p. 138.

41 Ahmed, Ibid., p. 141, makes a similar observation in the context of love specifically.