In this week's Backstage Blog, we chat with Jeremy Goldstein about the creation of their upcoming production, TRUTH TO POWER CAFE, opening at Theatre Works WEDNESDAY 5th February.
Q. What should audiences expect when they come to see Truth to Power Café?
A: Truth to Power Café is a 60 min theatre show in which I take the audience on a poetic journey through time, place and community. It begins with my father in 1950’s post-war London, to me becoming HIV+ in 1999 and into the present day. My story, which I tell through memoir, image, film, poetry, and music frames short monologues of compassionate truth-telling from community participants rising up in response to the question at the heart of the show ‘who has power over you and what do you want to say to them?’.
In advance of each performance, we cast up to 10 participants of all ages, experiences and backgrounds, so no single performance is ever the same. The format of the show is that every person has the space to speak their truth to power, and there is no commentary or questioning from the audience. Words including my own, are participants' to proclaim, unchallenged.
Part performance, memoir and impassioned activism - this long-term project of gathering, then detonating articulate voices of dissent has produced a singular blend of inspiring activist theatre.
Q. If Truth to Power Café had a Spotify Wrapped, what would be on it?
A: The music of David Bowie has topped my list since records began. Deeper cuts such as Word on a Wing, Eight Line Poem, and Teenage Wildlife would all be on it along with his immortal Heroes, a version of which is included in the show itself.
Among the many joys of having my own show is that I get to spend inordinate amounts of time creating playlists for our pre-show soundtrack. My last two shows in Vancouver and Newcastle (New Annual) have included Sweet Sounds of Heaven by The Rolling Stones, Baltimore by Prince, and Super Rich Kids by Frank Ocean.
Only one track has survived all sixty of our pre-show playlists, and that's Pictures of You by The Cure. If you want to know why, read the lyrics and see the show
Q. What has inspired you to create this work?
A: Before I made Truth to Power Café, I spent 25 years working internationally as a queer theatre producer. In 2002, I set up London Artists Projects to commission and present genre-busting interdisciplinary performance work with artists including Penny Arcade. Before that I was a founder member of ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) in Melbourne in the early 90’s, and saw first-hand how the movement which changed the face of health care for AIDS and HIV+ people world-wide, made every day people feel like heroes in their own lives.
Jump forward to 2013 when my father died. His death triggered a rigorous enquiry into our fractured relationship, during which I learned a lot about myself, and the nature of power, and occupation of the mind. It was that inquiry that sparked the creation of Truth to Power Café, and set me on a path towards truth and reconciliation.
My father was Mick Goldstein. He grew up with Nobel Prize winning playwright Harold Pinter and became the source for a number of Pinter characters. Harold and Mick met each other in East London in 1947 and together with their life-long friend Henry Woolf, became known as Harold’s inner circle called The Hackney Gang. For sixty years The Hackney Gang maintained their belief in speaking truth to power, and remained firmly on the side of the occupied, the disempowered and their allies. It is these people I invite to voice untold stories of loss, hope and resistance as part of performances which have become love letters to the memory of my father Mick and his friends of sixty years Henry Woolf and Harold Pinter.
Q. What would you want audiences to take away after seeing Truth to Power Café?
A: A renewed sense of love, hope and compassion.
Q: What has been the most memorable moment throughout the creation / rehearsal process?
A: Just before my father died, a life time of letters between my father, Henry and Harold were acquired by the Harold Pinter Archive at the British Library in London.
Reading the letters as I did in the early stages of the creation process, enabled me to meet my father as he was as a young man in the 1950’s. We never know our parents when they’re that age, so it had a profound effect on me. I discovered that he wanted to be a writer but his sense of pride prevented him from risking failure in front of his best friends, one of whom just happened to be one of the great British playwrights of the 20th century.
I then started to work with Henry Woolf who became my mentor and wrote the poetry I perform in the show directed by one of UK’s leading theatre directors Jen Heyes. Known as the King of the Avant Garde - Henry worked with all the greats including Peter Brook, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. He also appeared in the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Sadly Henry died in 2021 aged 87 but he continues to connect the work to a lost world and his legacy lives on in the show, which I’ve now created multiple times in eight countries with over eight hundred participants.
In November I celebrated my 60th performance event with a live broadcast from Vancouver, and in February I will finally land the show in Melbourne at Theatre Works as part of Midsumma.
We're bringing all the Queer Power we can muster to Melbourne and I couldn’t be happier.
Personal, professional, political, Truth to Power Café is now seeking participants of all ages, experience and backgrounds to speak their truth to power at Theatre Works on 5-6 February.
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