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BLACK ATLAS - Friday, 4 November 2005 |
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BLACK ATLAS - Friday, 4 November 2005 |
I went to a small, beautiful Church in Knightsbridge, St Saviours, to see a performance by a group called The London Shakespeare Workout of a new play called BLACK ATLAS. LSW is a superb organisation that takes into prisons workshops on verse speaking and Shakespearean drama, as well as producing plays featuring ex-offenders, community members and professional actors. BLACK ATLAS is based upon a George Macdonald Fraser novel called Black Ajax, about the 19th Century Prize-fighter Tom Molineaux, an ex-slave who twice boxed the great Tom Cribb.
The play uses a mix of song, verse and dialogue to tell the story. The production style was especially striking - muscular, controlled, beautifully spoken. You would be very lucky to see and hear performances this exemplary at our National companies, a thought made all the more extraordinary when one learns that this was rehearsed in two weeks!
BLACK ATLAS is an inspiring piece of theatre - the characters are vivid and the form intriguing. The feeling I got most, from sitting in this small chapel watching these guys perform, was how rare it is in our culture to see people claiming their human birthright through performance. This was not mere entertainment or people earning a living. It was performers exercising their talent for the betterment of self and others, for the glory of mankind.
Even as I type these words, I feel how unfashionable such a sentiment is, and that we could have collectively come to a culture where the arts are rarely seen as an elevating pursuit, rather than another product to be consumed and collected, is our shame. BLACK ATLAS ought to be better known - if it were to play Edinburgh or run in London, it would certainly be one of the best shows around.
The work of a company like London Shakespeare Workout goes against the contemporary view of things, standing up for human dignity and growth. They are a small, unheralded organisation. Their work ought to stand as an exemplar as to the future direction of our culture.
Only by facilitating generations who are proud of themselves and their cultural heritage, who have confidence and, importantly, resources, will we have any chance of surviving as a species.
We need BLACK ATLAS to be the norm, not the rare exception.
