Suspect Culture: Mainstream (programme from the performance)
Scots Present Theatre of the Future (Lidové noviny)

Photos from the performance
Poster of Performance




Archa Theatre and The British Council present

Suspect Culture: Mainstream

25 and 26 May 2000 in the Archa Theatre

Direction: Graham Eatough
Text: David Greig
Music: Nick Powell
Design: Ian Scott

Cast:
Callum Cuthbertson
Louise Ludgate
Nathan Pope
Gabriel Quigley

Company Manager: Shona Rattray
Technical Manager: Dave Shea

This performance is approximately 1hr and 30 min with no interval.
This tour is supported by the British Council.
Mainstream was created by Suspect Culture in association with the Bush Theatre London.
The performances in Prague are supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture.


Mainstream
During our first workshop on Mainstream, we explored the way in which life feels like a performance in which we constantly fail to remember our lines. We asked ourselves what it might feel like not to perform at all - to just be. We quickly realised that any situation in which two people were present was a performance - that people were acting for each other. 'Acting' is a pejorative word: 'It's all an act,' 'He puts it on,' 'It's all for show.' But no matter how much we might hate ourselves for it, we can't avoid performing. In every encounter with every other person - we're putting on a show. The interesting question is to ask what lies beneath the performance.

Mainstream was developed during workshops and discussions that took place between June and December 1998. In February 1999, the production toured Scotland. It was developed further for a second tour in summer 1999 and visited the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Bush Theatre London and the Dublin Fringe Festival.
          On this tour, Mainstream will visit Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Suspect Culture
Suspect Culture is based in Glasgow, Scotland and was founded by David Greig and Graham Eatough in 1990 in association with composer Nick Powell.
          Suspect Culture develops new work in collaboration with practitioners from a number of different backgrounds as well as the performing arts. The company's objective is to produce innovative theatre that develops the form and is accessible to as wide an audience as possible.
          It is also Suspect Culture's policy, as a Scottish touring company, to work with international practitioners and venues to explore and develop working methods and new theatre productions. A sense of internationalism is fundamental to the company's sense of cultural identity. The company has worked extensively in Britain and Europe with co-productions, tours and project development having already taken place between Suspect Culture and venues in Spain, Germany, England and Italy.
          Other Suspect Culture productions include Candide 2000, Timeless, Airport and One Way Street.
          The company's most recent show, Candide 2000 toured Scotland and to Newcastle in spring 2000. A radical updating of Voltaire's classic story, the production involved five professional actors, a live band and over forty-five teenagers between five venues who both participated in the development of the show and performed in it.
          In 1997, Suspect Culture was commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival. The resulting production Timeless won the Scotland On Sunday Critic's Award. Timeless was revived in 1998 and toured Scotland before going to the Donmar Warehouse in London.
          In 1996, Suspect Culture developed Airport as a co-production between Tramway Theatre in Glasgow and The Cuarta Pared Theatre in Madrid. Airport played Scotland and Madrid in 1996, was performed in Milan in 1997 and in 1998 toured the Basque Country, Spain.
          In 1995, One Way Street was nominated for The Lloyds Bank Best Play Award and Graham Eatough, Artistic Director of Suspect Culture, was nominated for The Stage 'Best Actor' Award. In 1997 the play toured Germany and, in 1998, the script was published by Nick Hern Books.

Artistic Director: Graham Eatough
Administrative Producer: David Smith
Company Dramaturg: David Greig
Musical Director: Nick Powell
Assistant Administrator: Colin Morrison
Projects Officer: Pamela Carter
Artistic Associates: Andres Lima, Patrick Macklin, Mauricio Paroni de Castro, Ian Scott

Board of Directors: John Clifford, Brian Gorman, Neil Murray (chair), Stuart Patrick, Iain Reekie, Kirsty Skinner, Keith Wright

Suspect Culture is funded by the Scottish Arts Council, and Glasgow City Council.
Suspect Culture's international projects are supported by the British Council.

Suspect Culture - the other information





Scots Present Theatre of the Future

British company Suspect Culture brought their performance of Mainstream to Prague's Archa Theatre. With the performance, they also conducted a creative workshop whose theme was that of Casanova. The results of the workshop could be seen on Saturday. Their appearance here in Prague presented just one of the many directions in which World Theatre will apparently proceed in the new millennium.
          Director David Grieg, dramaturg Graham Eatough, and composer Nick Powell founded Suspect Culture in 1990. The theatre company collaborates not only with actors, but also with artists from various backgrounds. As the title ironically indicates, the confrontation of art with the culture of everyday life is the primary subject of interest. It is phenomenal that the creative process is more important than the resulting product, "making theatre with or without the theatre", and along with this, some psychoanalysis by using the action of the scenes.
          The foundation of the performance of Mainstream is essentially found in the banal dialogue between two people (the characters are performed by two actors and two actresses, who switch roles, as if in a relay race.) The performance was more about the action that took place, with several variations on the same theme (if we would take it strictly, it was nothing new under the sun - we are intimately familiar with this theme, as they are also found in the plays of Havel, for example). The banal dialogue was based on the themes of work, sex, life long goals, and even in the surrounding environment which took note of life's "heroes".
          The action took place in an abstract space, like in a constant, "publicity" interior. Only the coloured stage light panels signalled some kind of change - the miniature stage surrounded by them - and the dramatic music, which changed from a minimalist sound to a somewhat kitsch, hilarious film orchestration. The emotionally loaded fragmentary dialogues touched upon some painful moments in the lives of the individuals, who sometimes walked up and down in a silent "working interview" and took technical poses, so that the resulting shape resulted in a documentary impression. The audience was left with the feeling that it had a backstage pass to a creative workshop whose production was taking shape right in front of their eyes.
          The contrast between the individual passing of fates and the search for the "mainstream" - ... where the individuals are completely replaceable with the second creation of an interesting counterpoint. We can identify with them (as well as others in the production) which now at the turning point of the millennium is very accurate. We also have a Czech equivalent to this with the film "Samotáři" by Zelenka and Ondříček. People wander about the world (no doubt) mutually sharing even the most intimate details of their own lives, but the reality of the contacts and the understanding comes through only in the rare moments - otherwise remaining closed within the armour-plates of their own solitude.

Jana Soprová, Lidové noviny, 28. 5. 2000