By CRIPtic Arts Artistic Director, Jamie Hale.
Theatre often asks people, especially people from marginalised groups, to mine their trauma as the most valuable creative inspiration we have to offer.
That expectation isn’t just limiting, it’s harmful – not only does our value go far beyond that, but it often pushes theatre-makers into making autobiographical work at times when they don’t feel ready to do so. Autobiographical work can be very powerful, but it must be made with genuine care, consent, agency and choice – not because it’s the one kind of work the industry will accept.
The expectation that people, and especially people from marginalised groups, should be willing to expose their trauma as the only thing about them that is interesting enough to inform theatre is a depressing indictment of the industry. It is an industry that doesn’t care for nurturing people or the wholeness of the stories they can tell, and instead focuses on an extractive relationship: sucking the marrow out of us in the form of trauma-focused work without giving us the resources we need to do that and thrive. And when it trains us, it tells us that our personal stories are paramount to creating art, rather than thinking about those stories that excite us, and that we want to tell.
I’m not for a moment saying that we shouldn’t make autobiographical work. Indeed, given the work I make, that would be very hypocritical of me. What I’m saying is that there are ways of making that work that look after ourselves and the people we’re working with, and that allow us to tell those stories in as healthy a way as possible. Over the past few years, I’ve supported and mentored theatre makers working with autobiographical material, and I’ve seen the same challenges come up again and again. It is a difficult and intense process, but also one that can be incredibly rewarding.
So, what can you do to keep an ethic of care, and self-care, in the work you make?
One of the many long-term projects I’m currently working on is a guide for theatre makers sharing personal trauma and autobiographical work. I’ve been writing this for about eight months, and I thought it was time to pause and see what could be summarised and said to an audience in a slightly shorter format than the current 28 pages of information. Originally, I’d started writing it for disabled theatre makers specifically, knowing how much we’re expected to perform and unravel our trauma in order to make work. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that much of it would be relevant for all theatre makers who are drawing on past challenges and experiences in making present work.
Starting to make the work
Before you start to make autobiographical work, think about why you’re making it and how you’re going to hold on to your own power, strength, and agency when you make it.
There are risks associated with autobiographical work, from emotional re-triggering and burnout to the ways in which the audience projects their lives onto your story. However, it also allows you to reclaim the narrative creatively, to build community, and to expand representation.
But how do you know if you’re ready?
Part of that is about understanding how your work will be taken and changed, and put in frameworks that don’t feel accurate to you – and how you’ll feel when people are telling your story in ways that feel wrong. Part of it is about learning from other people who have made autobiographical work, what challenges they faced and what got them through, and part of it is thinking about the internal and external support you have in place.
As you begin, make sure that you’re looking after yourself. Delving into your trauma might make for interesting art, but it can also risk being quite destructive for you as a person – or quite healing. One of the key ways you can look after yourself as you begin to make the work is by deciding what you will, and won’t, draw on. Some memories might be explicitly described in your work, while you might emotionally draw on others to inform your performance. However, you’re not necessarily ready to do that with all your memories and experiences, and by identifying and listing the things you’re not ready to draw on, you can make the definitive decision to leave them out of the work and not write about or think about them as you perform. This is about recognising your boundaries.
You also need to know how to look after yourself – and everyone benefits from very different things, but finding ways to wind down in the evening and leave rehearsals behind, to relax as your present-day self, and to put the work aside are vital lessons to figure out.
Making the work with a team
Theatre work is rarely made alone. If you decide to make the work you’re going to need to build a team around you, and however confident you are in looking after yourself, you’re also going to need to make sure you’ve built emotional safety into the process of making the work for the people around you as well.
This might include:
- Grounding exercises that help you slip in and out of being the character you’re playing
- Full team check-ins at the beginning and end of the day to understand how everybody (not just you) is doing
- Balancing your day so you’re not dealing with the most triggering material for too long on any given day
- Ensuring you have a good schedule with enough slack in it for days that go well and days that don’t
Remember that everyone you bring into the room needs to have consented to be in it, which means they need to understand the kinds of content you will be covering. For some people, this will be no barrier; for others, they may not want to work with the show at all. Alternatively, they may want to work with it but may need support in order to do so.
You will need to create a mutually positive, constructive, and supportive space that works for everyone, not just yourself. However, this also doesn’t mean taking on unilateral responsibility for everyone’s health – mental or physical. Just as you would (or should) protect their physical health by managing how long and intense the days are, so you can (and should) protect their mental health with content notes, downtime, and meeting their access needs – but you’re not responsible for all their needs and you’re not a doctor or a therapist.
What that means is that while you can and should offer some support, don’t do it at the cost of your own health, and recognise that active listening can be one of the most useful types of support you could offer. Because the process of making work is close and intense, and even once you’ve made it, you’ve got the next challenge to face – going into a run.
During a run
One of the challenges of doing a run of autobiographical work is that you have to go deep on something painful and traumatic as part of a show. You have to get into it, do it, get out of it, and then do the same the next night as well. This is easier said than done and really requires you to have strategies in place to look after yourself.
As a performer, I’ve always relied on having a pre-show and a post-show ritual that allows me to transition in and out of the character I play, knowing that the character is a variant on me but is not exactly like me. This might include bits of costume, gestures, make-up, breathing patterns, body language, words, vocal warm-ups and mascots that help you turn into the protected version of yourself you’ve created for the play.
The two things I suggest people have are an aftercare kit, and a set of friends who can act as a support network. An aftercare kit might vary from person to person, but I tend to think of things like flavoured sweets, textured fabric, fidget toys, crafty hobbies, and other ways of grounding yourself in your present at the end of a show. Having a support network is partly about having people who can listen to your feelings, but not just that – sometimes you want a friend who can make you laugh and break the tension, as well as a friend who will act as a sounding board.
Having an audience
When you’re putting the work on, then you suddenly also need to manage the impact on the audience. Just as you have that responsibility for yourself and your team, you also have a responsibility for your audience, and that means ensuring that they’re able to consent to engaging with your show, and you have care for them built into your practice.
It also means making sure that there are content notes present on the night. Not everyone will have been able to access the information in advance. You may also want things like fidget toys, a quiet space people can unwind in, a relaxed policy allowing the audience in and out during the show, and possibly to keep house lights on.
It’s not just about having the right audience access provisions. When you put the work on, people are going to want to talk to you about the experiences in the show. For me, when I’ve made semi-autobiographical solo work, I’ve deliberately distanced myself from it, such that to some extent the work is a fictional character rather than me.
You will need your own strategies for handling any distance you’re putting between yourself and the audience, but part-fictionalising your narrative may well be quite a strong one. If people want to bond with you about your story or want you to share information with them, remember that you don’t owe them anything and that it’s up to you to decide what you do.
Final thoughts
I hope this has been useful for theatremakers considering making autobiographical work – there’s a longer book behind it, coming at some point, but for now these are the key points I’ve been trying to make.
Autobiographical work can be fierce, flameridden, and powerful, but I also want to see theatremakers empowered to go beyond that.
Sometimes I feel our creative value is limited to being the sum of our trauma, and I want to watch us allowed to work far beyond that, to make work and tell stories that we want to tell, whether or not they draw intensely on elements of our own lives. I have had some of the most fun I’ve had as a writer telling stories that were mine – such as in Quality of Life is Not a Measurable Outcome – but I’ve had more of that fun telling Frankenstein – a story that was not autobiographical work.
I encourage you to find ways of telling the stories you want to be telling – don’t limit yourself to believing your only value is in autobiography, but if you’re telling that, think about how you’re telling it with care to everyone involved – including yourself.
