A Morning for Those Awake: A Report on a Meeting that took place in Cork City
The Metropole Hotel, Friday November 20th 2015 10am

Today many of the women of Munster working in theatre met in the Beckett room of the Metrepole hotel- on Mc Curtain St. Cork. It was a room of women and one man. I arrived late, but we introduced ourselves and then discussed the purpose of the meeting. The idea we could pull our strengths together to develop theatre in the region, for ourselves, and the younger generation to follow was the central theme of the discussion. Actually, the importance of getting young people access to theatre was referenced regularly, as well as thinking about the language theatre uses, and how it ranges in register from people working in theatre and those in the “Ivory towers of academia”. A point well worth raising. Other discussion points were more practical, how will we organise ourselves, and what are we doing? At present we can say there are activities being discussed, and I’m sure the next meeting in December will say a lot more.

I can only imagine the pockets of women meeting up all over the country. I believe by the end of 1916 women will be dumping the golf clubs and the negations of men, and filling up the theatres and discussing the possibilities of the future. Peter Brook had the Poor Theatre - I want a Maternal Theatre. I want to help women through pain and hardship. I find this hard to do in my personal life and harder to do in writing, but I do believe it drives a lot of my thinking about what the theatre can be. I want to use the theatre to celebrate feminine identity, parody its complexity and laugh whole-heartedly at the silly things we fear. I also want to talk about child loss, and I mean child loss in the much bigger way, but for me I don’t think we have enough stories about how little we are taught at school and how crappy our sex education was growing up, so I’d like to make a play about this some day. The meeting got me thinking about what stories I want to tell, so that was massively positive. I don’t know, I just know that today a room of women decided on a few good points. They will be circulated and another meeting will be held, and hopefully whatever comes of it, will be fruitful and robust.

More anon.

Continued Responses to #WakingTheFeminists

#BURN

For my part,  getting a play on its feet  is the hardest thing to do, but year after year I keep on doing it. It’s the unconquerable belief that through theatre I can show people a new, and often-strange, reality... or, I can fill a space in time where many of our human contradictions get to play out. For me this is what being a playwright is about – unleashing the political/social imagination and running with it - 

I agree that we need to be stronger in our language, and I back Carmel Winters statement fully- labels need to be applied. We need to tear things down and rebuild. I welcome Julie Kelleher’s statement to include a season of professional female writers at The Everyman, and I hope it brings new and established voices together in a way that is stimulating for the future of theatre both regionally and nationally in Ireland. It’s about greater opportunities for women in theatre, and it’s about the role of the arts in society, its values... function – purpose! 

The debate is linked to a bigger debate that needs to happen in Ireland now. I’ve said already on twitter that #GenderEquality #amendthe8th and #thechildcarecrisis should be hot topics in the debate running up to the next elections, and I see #WakingTheFeminists as a part of that. It's a big job to do, because these issues are not resolved and are constantly left unvoiced in the dark. Therefore, I'm supportive of all efforts to illuminate this shame of our society, and be rid of it- 

The next few weeks will show a lot. I’m committed to Dublin on Nov 12th. I’m committed to writing my play BURN fuelled with courage I draw from this movement, and I’m excited about this time of acute transformation and change. It is a time of celebration, activism and hard work. Now, I must get stuck in-

Jenny Rogers is a writer and a researcher. She has had 5 plays produced with Roundhouse Productions, and is currently doing a PhD in Playwriting at University College Cork 

Women of Munster hear my Cry #WakingTheFeminists

Women Of Munster Hear My Cry

#WakingTheFeminists

A great feminist movement has started in this country. It has come as a reaction to The Abbey Theatre 2016 commemorative programme  Waking The Nation. The male heavy programme highlights the gender inequality in the arts, and in particular concerning female playwrights, directors, and actors. It was Lian Bell who coined #WakingTheFeminists. For those of you not familiar with theatre, Lian is the body and soul behind Dublin Fringe Festival as well as many other projects. It’s fitting that Ms. Bell should first tweet #WakingTheFeminists on October 31^st - the pagan eve of Samhaim. It is said that Samhaim marks the liminal between the natural world and the world of spirits, and therefore traditionally great feast and bonfires have been lit to ward off any evil spirits. In a way #WakingTheFeminists is exactly that: A fire we can all feed to ward of the evil spirit of male heavy arts programming, and ultimately prevent the female voice from “being airbrushed from history”.

What Great Spirit has awoken? This is a question I’ve asked myself many times in the past year. I’ve been digging down into Ireland’s past, studying the voices of women and Irish Nationalism (See In Their Own Voice Ed. Margaret Ward) and although I’ve felt their plea and respect everything they address and say, I’ve had to resist, on several occasions, to write plays that romanticize these figures.  This is not to say they do not influence me; but the incremental step in the evolution of our social history is to awaken the contemporary voice of female theatre makers. This I feel passionately about, and I’m stunned to see how my feelings on the matter, are shared by the wider community of female theatre makers. We want to hear the voice of today, to see the visions of today’s directors, and the interpretations of our amazing ensemble of female contemporary performers, and we are awake to this goal. The object now, is to get the debate fired up, and drive on until boards tremor and roar with the might and power of female theatre makers.

If I was to be completely honest, one fear I had before they launched The Abbey Programme is it would include women writers, and foreground the female voice, but it would do so using richly romantic material that fails to resonate with the women of Ireland today. However, there is no risk of this happening now (Phew!). Therefore it seems in terms of having control over what the public experience as an Irish female voice from now on, the ball is completely in our court. Indeed it seems The Waking The Nation Programme has presented more of an opportunity than a set back- but that doesn’t mean it’s off the hook L

However, if we are going to look at this as an opportunity for to debate Equality in the Arts, why not take the opportunity further and seize this moment to build an even greater fire, and set up a platform for a national debate on Gender Equality in Ireland today. Straddling both the creative and academic fields personally, I see the same problems in Academia as I do the Arts, and we all know it stretches into every corner of society, so why not just take it on as a subject, expose it for what it really is, be done with it, and move on…? Is this possible? Or, is this waxing wholly optimism?

What I have noticed is the need for more women of Munster to get involved. We must boot up and thread on the twitter feed, and support our sisters in the National debate on Gender Equality. One idea I have is that everyone (who wants to participate) addresses the issues of gender inequality as they experience it themselves personally. I encourage the women of Munster to share their stories in the form of a blog (or you can just tweet a few words but make sure to hash tag #WakingTheFeminists when you do so).  All stories are important. The more specific the story to you, the better! This is about reclaiming voice, and sustaining it in a way that is persistent with the goal of a country where gender equality is once and for all achieved.

All of us are involved, it’s everyone’s responsibility, and the discussion has started

- So let’s get stuck in, and although I say women this is not to ever say I would exclude men…but it’s about illuminating the issues in order to tip the scales -

Jennifer Rogers

Jennifer is a writer/researcher based in Cork. 5 of her plays have been staged nationally and internationally to date. Jennifer's current play BURN will be staged in July 2016.

For further information contact: rogjenny@gmail.com