Newbury engaged by powerful testimonies as part Refugee Week theatre project

Rank and File Theatre: Are We There Yet?

at the Corn Exchange

on Wednesday, June 25

Review by ANDY KEMPE

IT was no surprise that Donald Trump wasn’t in the Corn Exchange to watch Rank and File Theatre’s latest production Are We There Yet?. No doubt there are a number of reasons for this but had he attended this performance, mounted to celebrate Refugee Week, I don’t think he’d have liked it much. Diversity, equality and inclusion are the raison d’etre for this company who are committed to working with asylum seekers, refugees, and those with visible and non-visible disabilities.

White folding chairs placed in areas of the stage delineated to represent the various rooms one would find at a railway station greeted the arriving audience. Images of urban Reading were projected onto the cyclorama while the stage apron was marked as the edge of the platform and rather symbolically warned those on stage that they should ‘Mind the gap’.

The cast entered and held a silence which, combined with their stillness, created a powerful focus. BBC Radio 3 presenter Fiona Talkington then introduced what was to come and significance of its timing.

What then followed was a fully signed compendium of monologues, two or three-handers and beautifully choreographed ensemble sequences.

A particularly powerful and joyous dance accompanied the singing of Bella Ciao, an Italian song dedicated to the partisans of the Italian resistance who fought against the Fascist forces 80 years ago but whose sentiments seem increasingly relevant today.

There was poetry in the words, voices and movements along with music specially composed and played by Stu Barker. Even when the language may have been foreign to the ears of many, the meanings still seemed to come across through the expressive tones of the actors.

When words simply couldn’t do the job, dance was employed, notably by Ganna Andruischenko, a professional dancer and refugee from Ukraine.

The overall impact was vibrant but at times heartrending. Having said that, the piece was certainly not without humour, albeit quite dark in places. No doubt we’ve all been frustrated by telephone calls to unhelpful automated devices which ask us to punch codes and numbers into our mobiles. How much more exasperating this must be for blind people such as Candy Egan whose reaction to being repeatedly told ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that’ was all too recognisable.

A common criticism of politically motivated or agit-prop theatre is that it can be overtly didactic and preaches to what is often an already sympathetic audience. Are We There Yet? generally managed to avoid this by focusing more on the real stories of the individuals who here had the opportunity to tell their own story in their own way.

This is not to say though that common myths regarding the amount of financial and other support afforded to refugees and the disabled weren’t corrected, or the contradiction that immigrants both deprive nationals of jobs while simultaneously living off benefits wasn’t exposed.

An extended Q & A session following the show was testimony to the extent of the audience’s engagement and gave the company a further chance to voice their thoughts and feelings. Most striking of these was the gratitude felt towards those who had given them so much friendship and support notwithstanding the hurdles placed in their way by an all too often unfeeling system and cumbersome bureaucracy.

Worthy of particular praise and gratitude was director and facilitator of this project, Jude Haste.

So, are we there yet? No, clearly not, but Rank and File are helping to light the way.