An Open Secret

When is a secret not a secret? The Lyric Hammersmith's clandestine company brings two pieces to the Fringe this year: the devised Show 5 (A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts) and a new play by Mark Ravenhill. Inspired by Secret Theatre's manifesto and their season so far, the playwright joined the project just weeks before Fest caught up with them, and began rehearsals immediately.

The experimental company, which has previously staged established plays without revealing their title in advance, is reevaluating its “secret” aspect to focus on “the importance of the ensemble, the makeup of an audience, and questioning the ways to make work.” Ravenhill is therefore free to spill the beans on Show 6 – which, he laughs, “is not so much under wraps as unwritten.”

“Plot-wise,” he says, “there are elements of a conventional thriller narrative.” In a world that's somewhere between a parallel universe and an imminent future, a fatal accident occurs and revolutionary events unfold. But “language has become fragmented and jagged – no thought can ever be completed and sometimes words come at random into people's heads and out of their mouths. It's an odd, dystopian world where language doesn't quite function,” Ravenhill explains. “Or maybe that's not so odd – maybe that's our world.”

The premise was “kind of an idea I'd had already,” but Show 6 is really coming to fruition for Ravenhill as he works alongside the performers. “One of the main things that you feel in English rehearsal rooms is often fear,” Ravenhill observes. “In this country, people in theatre are only employed for one job, so they might have had a long period of unemployment beforehand and they're terrified of another straight after. But when you put them on a permanent contract like this they're very relaxed, and open to a play changing in rehearsal. As a writer you're able to be much more fearless yourself. I've found it incredibly liberating.”

The strengths of the Secret Theatre ensemble, the playwright reckons, are that “they constantly challenge themselves, and really think about what they're doing,” as well as making up “a genuine reflection of society, a cross-section of people who are men, women, black, white, disabled and able-bodied. Even people with working class accents – that shouldn't be extraordinary, but has become so as theatre's got increasingly expensive and performing has become the preserve of the rich.”

He also praises the company's “honest,” German-influenced performance style they've developed and “their enthusiasm about what they're doing even when it doesn't all come off. It's a much more engaging theatrical experience than a well-made, rather perfect but slightly sterile piece of theatre.”

“I love writing for Edinburgh,” Ravenhill reflects. “I know the Festival has got much more commercialised, expensive and competitive, but there's still something about it. It just puts me in a good frame of mind to push myself.” Working with Secret Theatre, he says, has encouraged him to be “more formally playful, intellectually provocative, and unafraid... But who knows what we'll eventually come up with.”