Sunday 11th December

Market Forces, a drama by Off The Fence theatre company, took place in the markets area of the city centre today.

Artsin was there to see it and here is our report

Leicester has one of the biggest covered markets in Europe and the permanently fixed stalls formed the area in which a drama called Market Forces was produced by theatre group Off The Fence. Written by four local playwrights, the production was delivered by local actors, many of them youngsters, as the audience moved from stall to stall to watch the drama unfold.

Market Forces is the first play by the recently established theatre group, and its Artistic Director, Gary Philpott said: "This performance will give local playwrights, actors and technicians a unique stage to showcase their skills.

I think the market will make an excellent venue and hope it will be accessible to a new generation of theatre lovers."

Producer Verity Bartesch commented "This is so exciting. Everyone involved comes from different backgrounds, all bringing fresh ideas and experiences."

Gary Philpott came up with the idea of mounting a drama in the markets about three years ago.

The play had a number of scenes, each held in a different area of the market with the audience walking from place to place to follow the action.

The play began with three actors standing on one of the stalls. Dressed in potato sacks, they began the dialogue which revolved around the images and icons of the market, including vegetables. They had collected things that were laying around in the market to use as costumes and props.

The dialogue was about meaning and the character's search for things that were meaningful to them. The props they used were symbolic, both of the market place and of their fears and aspirations.

The audience was guided across to the other side of the market by a number of young men running across the tops of the stalls, Parkour-style.

There was a scene in which some actors played stall holders and others took the part of customers. The hard-edged dialogue dealt with things that could be overheard on a busy market day, including issues of race and gender. One male actor played the part of an asian woman dressed in a hajib, arguing with the stall holders about why she wore it to cover her face and what they thought about it.

At several times it was ambiguous whether the role was that of a man or woman; you had to infer this from the dialogue.

The piece about the homeless person was very powerful and worked in the open publicness of the market very well.

A theme of one of the scenes was people being trapped in jobs they really didn't want to do, but being unable to choose to do anything better.

Hannah Puttnam and Zahra LeVell at the rehearsals

The scenes were a series of stories. They were reflections about life of people in Leicester, some of which were thought provoking, made-up dialogues based on real people and snippets of overheard conversations.

The playwrights worked with the actors to flesh out the parts, taking care to avoid over-stating or under-stating some of the roles.

Holding a play in the markets area posed challenges and difficulties quite different to those of a conventional theater setting. It also gave a reality and an immediacy that would have been lacking inside the warm and comfortable and secure environment of somewhere like Curve or the Phoenix.

The play dealt with issues that face people on the streets (homelessness, racism) so performing it on the 'street' gave it an authenticity that would have been lacking in a multi-million pound theatre.

The last scene portrayed a group of characters in 1905, arguing about a march to London by people who were unemployed, including a priest who began the scene by preaching about the scourge of worklessness. Based on historical fact, it had many resonances for the modern day. The early twentieth century dialogue would not be out of place in 2011.

There was no PA and no lighting and hence no technical challenges to grapple with. The actors were nevertheless good at making themselves heard and there was (on a wet overcast afternoon) just enough light to see clearly what was going on.

This was theatre in the round, with no stage to create a barrier between the actors and their audience. They found it challenging but hugely enjoyable, the actors told the meeting that took place afterwards.

The audience and the cast retired to the warmth of the fifteenth century cellar under the Corn Exchange to discuss the play. It took the writers about six weeks to pen the dialogue and the cast spent about four weeks in rehearsals. Most of the cast were recruited through word of mouth. Some of them were students from the DMU drama school.

Adam Wilksinson and Lesley Emery in rehearsals

Off The Fence theatre is planning a production at the Y Theatre next year. So we are very much looking forward to that.

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