Australia, the twenty-first century.
A group of artists and people with lived experience of the criminal justice system work together to develop an experimental performance called The Chat. Their shared project is to create a utopia, in which the parole interview can become a transformative encounter between two human beings.
To Meet Yourself: Performing the Parole Interview in The Chat documents and reflects on the 4 year period of creating the work, capturing the methods and impacts of a unique project whose significance can be felt well beyond the walls of the theatre.
Introduced by lead artist and KIN creative director James Brennan, the book has contributions by playwright Richard Murphet; the artists who developed the work, including David Woods and Ashley Dyer; criminologist Dr. Anna Eriksson, who observed and evaluated the project from it’s first workshops; and participating ex-offenders, included through excerpts from interviews, and a series of portraits by Melbourne photographer Bryony Jackson.
Each chapter presents a different perspective on the core task of combining artistic aims with social aims. James Brennan teases out the background, purpose, and guiding principles of Transpersonalisation — an experimental approach to the parole interview conceived and developed within the works artistic development — and on the complex interplay of truth and fiction that theatrical reality can make manifest. Director and playwright, Richard Murphet outlines a rich context for The Chat in the long history of theatre about the prison or imprisonment. This approach allows him to point out ways in which the project is daringly original.
The voices of participants in The Chat emerge strongly in criminologist Dr. Anna Eriksson’s chapter, which explores their experiences of working on the project. Eriksson frames these with reference to restorative justice, recognising the value of The Chat as a ceremony of social reintegration. As such, she links The Chat to theatre’s ancient roots in public ceremony and ritual.
Portraits of The Chat participants comprise the middle section, or heart, of the book, contributed by photographer Bryony Jackson and highlight each participant’s vital commitment to the process of making and reflecting on the work. Commitment is also a theme of the essay that follows, where artist David Woods evokes the emotions involved in particular performances of The Chat. Following this key collaborator and workshop facilitator Ashley Dyer details the development of the feedback model for our project — an essential feature of the rehearsal workshops. The discussion conveys Dyer’s lucid awareness of the distinction and overlap between workshops more focused on personal development, and those more concerned with the theatrical performance of The Chat.
CREDITS:
Published January 2019
Complied by James Brennan with contributions by Anna Eriksson, Richard Murphet, David Woods, Ashley Dyer and Bryony Jackson
Editing by Cynthia Troup
Design by Rebecca McCauley