2: Staging Shared-Space Violence
Challenge
The Peaky Blinders is incredibly violent. These are not pleasant people, they steal, they maim, they kill. They sit happily at the top of a vicious food-chain having gorged themselves on fallen enemies. The challenge we were faced with here was to limit our recourse to violence. Sharing the same space as our audience meant we couldn’t have weapons. Not only that, but even the content itself must be ‘safe’, and not, given the associated dangers of dealing with a drinking audience, encourage an atmosphere of violence in response to any brutalities we render.
Solution
Capitalising on the threat of violence: Incorporated into our narrative was the idea that it is no longer acceptable for the children of Birmingham to grow up in a community where violence and bloodshed is an everyday common occurrence. The rules of our streets dictated that any man who brandishes a gun in the heat of rage, or without the consent of contract, would be dealt with justly and firmly by the Peaky Blinders.
Capitalising on the threat of violence: Incorporated into our narrative was the idea that it is no longer acceptable for the children of Birmingham to grow up in a community where violence and bloodshed is an everyday common occurrence. The rules of our streets dictated that any man who brandishes a gun in the heat of rage, or without the consent of contract, would be dealt with justly and firmly by the Peaky Blinders.
We were sensitive, throughout the performance, to the dangers of inviting violent attitudes from our audience. The content, even without enacted blood-shed, proved, at times, incendiary. Our audience, fully immersed in the less than liberal outlooks of the 1920’s world and fully motivated by alcohol, at times ventured into areas we were keen to avoid. The Peaky’s world depicts marginalised people such as travellers and the Jewish community, and deploys a lexicon which is far more racist and sexist than contemporary standards. We took the decision to not only avoid, but directly challenge the audience if any sexist or racist phrases were uttered. So when Gypsies were called ‘pikies’ or female Peakys were maligned, other actors stepped in and insisted on respect in language, as well as action.
Violence as ‘play’: The day was based on 4 charitable boxing matches which took place at various intervals. These fights were set in a boxing ring, and as such, was obviously theatrical. Moreover, each fight was shrouded in elaborate storytelling, gambling, and audience enlistment, in order to make the mythology of each fight transcend the focussed point of combat and permeate across all the day’s activity. In other words, they allowed us to channel and control the violent conduits of the Peaky’s World.
The only time we used blood was during the fights, inside the boxing-ring, so that the audience knew that these moments were staged: the spectacle of flowing blood in shared space performance zones can be too easily misinterpreted as an actual altercation, stage violence must declare itself as illusory. To this end, we also had key moments of stylised choreography in each boxing match, a moment when the fight enters a slow motion phrase, accompanied by LX and SFX changes, and mirrored by actors in the crowd. These heavily stylised moments made it clear to the audience that we are creating beauty within horror, it makes their role as theatre attendees clear, and allowed us to achieve an increasingly cinematic aesthetic.
Audience-performer contracts: We staged 2 street spectacles over the course of the day which happened amidst huge audience crowds. One of these was a women’s march against unfair representation. Here, despite the volatility of the subject matter, performers insist with the audience members they enlisted that it is a peaceful demonstration, that all protestors must be as one, unified in attitude and intent, linking arms to show solidarity with each other, rather than solitary acts of violence towards the status quo.
Outcome
Reviews cited professionalism and style of boxing matches as being high-point of festival activity.
Instances of audience violence (1 physical, 13 verbal) were dissipated and dealt with in the moment by well-prepped actors and marshalls
Creation of huge street spectacles utilising over 300 audience members
Choreographed moments of violence and spectacle used as video-content for marketing future incarnations of festival.
The only arrests that happened over the course of the festival were in music stages, none in well-curated Dank performance zones.
Creation of a lexicon which balances modern liberal values and 1920s
Sustained protective boundaries for audience and performer developed as blue-print for future work
"The bloodletting was very dramatic and looked extremely authentic"
- I am birmingham
"The crowd became huge with all the women joining"
- burmlive
