Camp Sabotage - Life under canvas
There is something magical and timeless about pitching a tent and camping out under the stars. It evokes so many memories of childhood holidays and expeditions with friends and family. The first experiences of staying away from home or setting up camp in your back garden and creating a world within a world. There’s a sense of adventure and the satisfaction that comes with self sufficiency. Being amongst the elements forces you to focus your energy and simplify your priorities - something people will no doubt be more able to relate to at this particular moment in time.
You take more notice of the sky, the landscape and your surroundings. Things you may otherwise have taken for granted are elevated as your estimations about what you need to be content in the moment just melt away. A pitched tent is a victory in and of itself! A lit fire gives an immediate sense of ceremony and occasion. Warm, dry socks are luxurious beyond words. Food shared around a campfire with your friends in a field is about as good as life can get! To incorporate camping into life on tour adds so much to the experience and gives us as a company a shared sense of ownership of the spaces we have come to inhabit for staging our shows.
Which is not to say that life on the road is always idyllic. You are always at the mercy of the elements. You have to be confident enough pitching a tent that you can do it in the dark. You have to be able to multi task so you can fend off animals whilst preparing a meal, managing a fire, and simultaneously answering questions from locals who might be curious about what’s going on. There is always at least one dramatically stormy night - something we’re so used to these days that we can find ourselves in fits of laughter at the inevitability of howling winds and torrential rain keeping us from our sleep. Sabotage shows feature storms and rainy days in some of the scenes and so many of the lines of dialogue end up being immediately relevant as life imitates art and we find ourselves at the mercy of the weather so it provides some great opportunities for impromptu midnight line runs!
The reality is that setting up camp ourselves makes touring affordable, especially in more rural locations. The fewest company members we have taken on the road is four - three actors and a stage manager. Being free of the restrictions of budgeting for hotel rooms means that we can allocate more time to each location on our schedule, arriving well in advance - sometimes even a couple of nights before a performance.
We can be based wherever we need to be for the play so that we can spend time working out all the pre production issues uninterrupted. This gives us the opportunity to rehearse in the space so we can think about the variety of ways we can use each venue differently, making every performance slightly unique and creating a much stronger relationship between each location and the world of the play. It’s far more interesting for an audience, whether we’re setting up a show in the church they visit regularly or an old quarry they never knew existed. It’s demanding for the actors as there are new things to remember but it also keeps the work fresh because it is always changing and evolving as if the play has a life of its own.
Another great advantage is that camping allows us to increase the number of company members we tour with at minimal additional cost. If we want to document life on the road we can include a photographer or film maker in our party, or if we know we’re on a tight schedule or have a particularly technical set up we can invite our dedicated camp chef along to prepare meals whilst we’re working so we have shorter breaks and use our time more productively.
We’ve had interns who have joined us on tour to learn about the practicalities of rural theatre productions, a wonderful opportunity that would not have other been feasible. Company members from previous productions can revisit us and help out with pre show marketing or running a box office or bar or simply acting as guides when we’re staging a play somewhere off the beaten track!
Whilst camping undoubtedly involves more work it also creates a real camaraderie within the group. When Sabotage are on tour we live and exist as a company, sharing the same space, creating a home as we go, setting up camp, collecting firewood, cooking, cleaning up. We even have our very own glamorous theatre dog Genie who accompanies us on tour at times - she’s the true prima donna of the company! All of that organic sense of community bleeds into how we work together when it’s show time too. Everything about our touring experience is cohesive, we’re not putting on a show each night and then whiling away the hours in between, lost in our own worlds.
Touring is always tiring but the benefits of living in such harmony with nature mean that it is also rejuvenating at the same time. It’s incredibly grounding being led by the elements and it gives you a chance to reset away from the circus of twenty first century life so you can be more present when an audience arrives.
The tradition of theatre is so deeply entwined with the belief that anything is possible and it is encouraging to be able to demonstrate just what can happen when people come together with a shared objective. By arriving in rural locations and setting up camp we hope to reinforce that message for the children and young people in the area, whether they come to our shows or simply notice us camped out locally. It’s important that they see there are ways to be resourceful and self starting, especially as theatre can be such an exclusive and closed industry. Establishing a base in the area where we’re due to perform makes the reality of theatre viable, tangible and accessible - there are no stage doors or green rooms in the depths of the countryside!
We do however have our glorious Sabotage tent, one of our most beloved and treasured belongings. Sabotage applied for a grant from the Lady Neville Charity which supports investment in capital assets, as opposed to running costs, for events and projects. The charity is affiliated with the Skinners Company, one of the original twelve livery companies that developed in London from medieval trade guilds, which has a charter dating all the way back to 1329! The Lady Neville Charity provides grants for Arts and Heritage projects with a particular interest in supporting investment in the Romney Marsh area of Kent where Sabotage plays are set and performed. Our application included photos of the antique perpetually patched-up Scout tent which we had been using until that point and which really was on its last legs.
Our theatre tent is a striking blue and white striped little top, which is classic and timeless in appearance, adding to the romanticism of a group of storytellers on tour and making an impression wherever we go. It’s large enough that we can store all our set and props inside it as well as having room for the company to sleep. It has detachable side panels so if we’re staging more intimate work or running workshops we have a sheltered space we can use. Camping under canvas feels like we’re following in the footsteps of generations who have been before, and it’s a lovely connection to times gone by when the only way to let people from different parts of the country know about your shows was to make your way there and play for them. It’s all the more important to keep that tradition alive in an era when most of our experience of culture is processed through screens and electronic devices.
We hope that the time people have spent in isolation over the last few months will inspire a renewed appreciation of live arts and rejuvenate people’s curiosity about getting out into the world to share stories, make memories and experience nature and theatre wherever they might find it. You can be sure that we’ll be heading off on tour again next summer so keep an eye out for our tent if we’re going to be in your neck of the woods.
We have set up camp in some surreal and wonderful places, staying on both common ground and private land, at festivals, in quarries, in the woods, and in pre-existing communes. On our most recent tour we travelled further afield than we have done previously and we had our first experience of camping inside in a rural church and also in a primary school.
Camping in St George’s Church at Ivychurch was quite an experience. It was built in the 13th century and is known as the Cathedral of Romney Marsh. The church also houses the Museum of Rural Life, so there’s a real sense of local history in the building. Cyclists and walkers would stop by throughout the day to look in whist we were rehearsing. The church is even rumoured to have hidden tunnels that were supposedly used by smugglers in years gone by. The church has a beautiful old clock tower and the clunks and creaks of the moving mechanism of the clock kept taking us by surprise in the dead of night night, especially as it was so quiet and still. It inspired us to share ghost stories to make the most of the magical atmosphere.
For our performance at Trythall Primary School in Penzance we were invited to camp inside the school itself which was such an adventure. Myself, Zoe and Sarah, along with Genie our theatre dog, slept in the school hall where we were kept company by the school pets. Lee’s eyes lit up when he discovered the library and he immediately set up his own camp amongst the books! In fact we all chose stories to read from the wonderful collection that evening and we were each given a beautiful book of artwork created by the students as a memento of our time there. It was wonderful to get to see all the projects and activities the children were involved with - the rooms and corridors were littered with beautiful creations and muddy wellington boots. We all agreed we wished we were young enough to attend their classes - even their PE lessons are an adventure as they often go to one of the local beaches for surfing sessions to make the most of the wonderful part of the country they inhabit. They have gardens with vegetables and chickens so the children learn practical skills for sustainable living. In fact Zoe met Trythall’s head teacher at an Extinction Rebellion event when the children had travelled up to London to create chalk art on Waterloo Bridge. When we heard about how progressive the school was we couldn’t wait to come and meet the children and perform for them.
You can find some videos we took at the time on our social media pages. Look out for some stories about these places and more in our upcoming blogs. Until then we wish you nothing but happy camping!
words by Zinta Gercans
