West Sussex theatre director offering an epic community project for our troubled times

SussexWorld

Barnham-based theatre director Joe Harmston is hoping to get an epic community theatre production off the ground – one with direct and worrying resonance for a modern world lurching towards the far right.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. It's always

00:06lovely to speak to Joi Holmeston, one of our most interesting directors around. And Joi,

00:10we've been speaking, we were reminiscing probably for about 30 years now, and you have come

00:15up now with probably, well, the most ambitious project of your theatrical career. And what

00:21is it? Is it something that you are looking for takers to mount?

00:26That's right. Yeah, I think I have finally lost my mind. Because when everybody's looking

00:31for sort of three-hander plays, about small subjects, I've come up with this idea, which

00:38called The Play and the Pledge, which is a six-act, two-play epic, with potentially a

00:45cast of 200. And it's based on an extraordinary story about Hitler's visit to the 1934 Oberammergau

00:56Passion Play, and an extraordinary story about the man who was playing Jesus, who

01:04became the first Nazi in the village, the first person to join the party, and the only

01:10Jew in the village who'd fled from Munich, who ended up working with them on the music,

01:16and was eventually then expelled by the village, but extraordinarily returned after the war

01:23to appear as a witness in the denazification hearings, and exonerated the very person who

01:33had in fact beaten him up and sent him to Dachau. So, it's a story about...

01:37When you first started thinking about this 25 years ago, when maybe it was slightly less relevant,

01:43your point now is, it's a story that absolutely needs to be told in our current climate, isn't it?

01:49Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was the thing. I read about it when I was directing Henry V at the

01:55Arundel Festival, which you well remember and were very supportive of, and so I was in the

02:01sort of midst of working on a massive community project, and I read about the Oberammergau Play

02:06and this huge community that works on the piece, and has done since 1634, and I was riveted by it.

02:15But at the time, the thing was that actually the world was in a very positive place then,

02:21and I think the last thing we really would have believed is a story about a community

02:27becoming wrapped up in sort of extremist politics, whereas now, sadly, the idea has become more and

02:35more resonant, and I think it's a story that really needs to be told, but also could be

02:41really fascinating to be exploring in the midst of a community, which would be what would happen

02:47with a long-term project of which the play would just be the culmination.

02:52So you are looking for a community to take it on at the moment, what sort of scale are you thinking?

02:58Well, I mean, it is a piece that really could encompass a community cast of, I mean, up to 300,

03:06I think kind of 150 to 200 would be the kind of optimum, but because it involves choirs,

03:15it involves actors, it involves musicians, you know, one could actually have different groups

03:21dealing with all of those things, and my goal would be that you spent, you know, a year to 18 months

03:28working in the community, finding those people, connecting with choirs, connecting with amateur

03:34groups, bringing them all together, and forging one team that would actually realise the story,

03:43alongside a small core of professionals working on it and creating the production.

03:50And this is the biggest thing you've ever contemplated, isn't it, surely?

03:54Yes, I think it is, and as I say, I think I have finally completely lost my mind, but my

04:00feeling is, you know, damn it, the theatre is so important, and it is the place that you can

04:07really explore big ideas, and I think, you know, the world needs big stories about big ideas,

04:16and if you are going to tell big stories and big ideas, tell them big, you know, it needs a huge,

04:23epic space in order to tell it, that ideally would be an existing theatre building, but it could

04:30perfectly well be outside, in the way that we did things at Arundel, or in some other found space,

04:36but it is, yeah, it is an epic piece, and I think it's something that's been gnawing away at me for

04:4325 years, and I've just thought, damn it, let's go for a break, see if we can make it happen.

04:50And you've got a London launch on the 30th, that's the idea.

04:54That's right, we're just going to try a sequence of scenes, I've got a choir,

05:01which I've put together over the last couple of months, which is going to just showcase some of

05:05the music which I've commissioned from Rob Singer, who's an amazing, talented young composer,

05:11and we're going to showcase some scenes, we've got a lovely audience coming along,

05:16interested people from the industry, and a lot of friends and supporters,

05:20we're going to film that, so we'll have, as they say now, some video assets,

05:24that we can show people who can't make it, how the piece would work.

05:30Lovely to speak to you, good luck with everything, and keep me posted, thank you.

05:33I will, thank you, Phil.

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