Freedom and Revolution : engaging creatively with Portchester's French prisoners of war and Revolution in the Caribbean
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: French Studies
Abstract
This follow-on proposal will provide significant additional impact by empowering young people to engage directly and creatively with research developed during the AHRC-funded "French Theatre of the Napoleonic Era" project (2013-2017). In performing a new play about the Caribbean Revolutionaries held at Portchester Castle in 1796, members of the National Youth Theatre and local Hampshire community groups will bring that research to both a live audience and a global virtual one. A recording of the production will be the centrepiece of a range of educational resources to help English Heritage tell a forgotten part of Black History. The original research showed how important theatre was in shaping debates about nationhood and political legitimacy during the First Empire and how prisoner-of-war theatre fostered cultural exchange, themes that will be echoed in the new play.
In 1807, French prisoners of war on board the prison hulk The Crown, moored in Portsmouth Harbour, opened a Theatre of Emulation (the name comes from one of the popular Boulevard theatres in Paris) and premiered a 4-act historical drama, The Revolutionary philanthropist or Hecatomb on Haiti, which tackled the incendiary topic of the Haitian Revolution. A manuscript of the play survives and it shares a number of themes with the only other known surviving French prisoner-of-war play manuscript of the period, Roseliska, which premiered at Portchester Castle in 1810. Ideas of freedom, imprisonment, resistance, patriotism and loyalty suffuse both texts but, unlike Roseliska, the Revolutionary Philanthropist is unperformable in a 21st-century context because it reproduces 18th-century notions of racial difference that are wholly unacceptable today.
In 2019, sound artist Elaine Mitchener subverted the intention of the anonymous author of the Revolutionary Philanthropist to highlight Black agency in the struggle for emancipation by using extracts from it in a Warwick-commissioned sound installation, 'Les Murs sont témoins /These Walls Bear Witness' at Portchester Castle. This has revealed the potential for working creatively with the play as a means of exploring the Revolution in the Caribbean and Portchester's role in global history: over 2000 Black revolutionaries from St Lucia, St Vincent, Guadeloupe and Haiti, including women and children, were captured by the British in 1796 and sent to Portchester. Their lives mirror those of the on-stage rebels in the Revolutionary Philanthropist.
Heritage Lottery Funding has already paid for me to work with a director, Mumba Dodwell and a playwright, Lakesha Arie-Angelo since July 2020, and for 2 weeks of R&D [research and development] workshops under English Heritage's flagship youth engagement programme Shout Out Loud. Two powerful work-in-progress performances have been transformational for those involved. The NLHF money was never going to be enough to cover a full production and it is clear that the legacy of the project will now fall short of its full potential unless the new play is performed on site at Portchester to engage meaningfully with decolonising Portchester's history as a prison-of-war depot. Follow-on funding would enable us to continue to work with playwright and director and record the production to use as the focal point of a range of educational resources. A live streaming of the play will be broadcast simultaneously on the EH and NYT YouTube channels, which between them have 1.3 million subscribers. The new play, written in conjunction with young Black actors from NYT, explores fundamental questions about human rights, discrimination, identity and power. It moves beyond traditional narratives of the enslaved as victims and celebrates the role of women in Revolution. Bringing it to production would allow us to reach new audiences, especially in the Caribbean, significantly enhance the value and wider benefits of the original research project and enable young people to take ownership of history.
In 1807, French prisoners of war on board the prison hulk The Crown, moored in Portsmouth Harbour, opened a Theatre of Emulation (the name comes from one of the popular Boulevard theatres in Paris) and premiered a 4-act historical drama, The Revolutionary philanthropist or Hecatomb on Haiti, which tackled the incendiary topic of the Haitian Revolution. A manuscript of the play survives and it shares a number of themes with the only other known surviving French prisoner-of-war play manuscript of the period, Roseliska, which premiered at Portchester Castle in 1810. Ideas of freedom, imprisonment, resistance, patriotism and loyalty suffuse both texts but, unlike Roseliska, the Revolutionary Philanthropist is unperformable in a 21st-century context because it reproduces 18th-century notions of racial difference that are wholly unacceptable today.
In 2019, sound artist Elaine Mitchener subverted the intention of the anonymous author of the Revolutionary Philanthropist to highlight Black agency in the struggle for emancipation by using extracts from it in a Warwick-commissioned sound installation, 'Les Murs sont témoins /These Walls Bear Witness' at Portchester Castle. This has revealed the potential for working creatively with the play as a means of exploring the Revolution in the Caribbean and Portchester's role in global history: over 2000 Black revolutionaries from St Lucia, St Vincent, Guadeloupe and Haiti, including women and children, were captured by the British in 1796 and sent to Portchester. Their lives mirror those of the on-stage rebels in the Revolutionary Philanthropist.
Heritage Lottery Funding has already paid for me to work with a director, Mumba Dodwell and a playwright, Lakesha Arie-Angelo since July 2020, and for 2 weeks of R&D [research and development] workshops under English Heritage's flagship youth engagement programme Shout Out Loud. Two powerful work-in-progress performances have been transformational for those involved. The NLHF money was never going to be enough to cover a full production and it is clear that the legacy of the project will now fall short of its full potential unless the new play is performed on site at Portchester to engage meaningfully with decolonising Portchester's history as a prison-of-war depot. Follow-on funding would enable us to continue to work with playwright and director and record the production to use as the focal point of a range of educational resources. A live streaming of the play will be broadcast simultaneously on the EH and NYT YouTube channels, which between them have 1.3 million subscribers. The new play, written in conjunction with young Black actors from NYT, explores fundamental questions about human rights, discrimination, identity and power. It moves beyond traditional narratives of the enslaved as victims and celebrates the role of women in Revolution. Bringing it to production would allow us to reach new audiences, especially in the Caribbean, significantly enhance the value and wider benefits of the original research project and enable young people to take ownership of history.
People |
ORCID iD |
Katherine Astbury (Principal Investigator) |
Title | The Ancestors production at Portchester Castle |
Description | Brand-new play by Lakesha Arie Angelo performed onsite at Portchester Castle by NYT cast |
Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Impact | Publication of the play, creative development by playwright and actors, greater awareness of history of prisoners of war by general public |
Title | The Ancestors: monologues |
Description | The research team worked with the playwright, director and NYT members in the R&D phase and some of the monologues the actors produced out of that R&D have been published on Google Arts and Culture |
Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Impact | The young Black women actors involved in the R&D phase had not really been taught about the struggle for emancipation in the Caribbean and were inspired by the stories revealed by the archives. It has had an effect on their artistic development. |
URL | https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-ancestors-finding-our-voices-english-heritage/fgVB4heOO2... |
Title | The Ancestors: monologues |
Description | The research team worked with the playwright, director and NYT members in the R&D phase and some of the monologues the actors produced out of that R&D have been published on Google Arts and Culture |
Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Impact | The young Black women actors involved in the R&D phase had not really been taught about the struggle for emancipation in the Caribbean and were inspired by the stories revealed by the archives. It has had an effect on their artistic development. |
URL | https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-ancestors-finding-our-voices-english-heritage/fgVB4heOO2... |
Description | Young people at the National Youth Theatre and in the local area around Portchester have been able to explore the history of the Revolution in the Caribbean and its impact on Portchester Castle. They have been able to develop creative responses to the archival material. NYT members developed monologues relating to the material and were then involved in an on-site production of a new play by Lakesha Arie Angelo which focused on the women prisoners of war at Portchester |
Exploitation Route | The model of co-production of creative outputs related to archival records. |
Sectors | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Description | National Youth Theatre and English Heritage have both produced educational resources for use by schools. The project has had a demonstrable positive effect on the young Black NYT members involved in the research and development phase and the production of The Ancestors. The have a clearer sense of their identity and history as a result of being involved in the project. It also had a positive impact on groups of young carers in the Portchester area who were invited to join in the creative process through workshops with NYT. There have been a number of creative outputs from the project, most notably the publication of the playtext of The Ancestors by Methuen. There should be economic benefits in due course for the site at Portchester through new interest in visiting as a result of seeing the screened production and from the greater visibility of the prisoners of war's stories. |
First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
Sector | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic |
Description | collaboration with English Heritage |
Organisation | English Heritage |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We offered our research expertise to the reinterpretation team preparing a new exhibition at Portchester Castle, advising on the panels, the reconstructed stage, the dressing-up box contents, illustrations. Our performance of one of the prisoner-of-war melodramas was the launch event for the new exhibition and music from that performance is being used in the audio guide. The information on the Portchester website about the theatre is drawn from our research and we were part of the video made to mark the exhibition launch. We have taken part in a family weekend at the castle and run a schools event on the melodrama. |
Collaborator Contribution | English Heritage have been exemplary partners. They let us have access to the keep for rehearsals and the performance, facilitated our work with the events team and the education team and allowed us to share our research with a new audience. |
Impact | exhibition; schools events; family days; online material; audio guide;. guide book; conference papers; podcasts; recording of dress rehearsal |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | collaboration with National Youth Theatre |
Organisation | National Youth Theatre of Great Britain |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have provided research background for a new play based on a 19th-century prisoner-of-war historical drama |
Collaborator Contribution | NYT have developed a creative team to work on the new project with us and English Heritage |
Impact | Being Human festival talk, November 2020 |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Being Human festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Being Human Festival 2021 discussion on YouTube about the creative collaboration between researchers at Warwick, English Heritage and the National Youth Theatre See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNIvBIMKDw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDVyG7_YLA0&t=134s as streamed live through both university and NYT YouTube channels |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhNIvBIMKDw |
Description | Being Human festival 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Screening of the Ancestors with Q&A with academic and creatives at the National Youth Theatre headquarters. The screening sparked questions and discussion 86% of respondents scored 10 or 9 (out of 10) when asked how likely they would be to recommend to friends 77% of respondents were under 35 55% of respondents identified as coming from the global majority 18% of respondents identified as D/deaf or disabled or having a long-term health condition that impacts on their daily life |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Feelings of Freedom festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A talk and performance by PI and 2 actors from the production of The Ancestors |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/events/feelings-of-freedom |
Description | Screening of the Ancestors, Portchester Castle, with Q&A |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The film of The Ancestors was screened at Portchester with a Q&A beforehand with academic and creatives. The screening sparked questions and discussion and audience members reported increased interest in related subject areas. One questionnaire respondent wrote: The history I was taught from this period paints black peoples as passive victims, beaten into submission. Yet here were incredibly mistreated people staging a rebellion! Turns the narrative on its head! I've been thinking and reading ever since. The extent of black people's part in directly shaping UK history and, more to the point, wealth and international standing is utterly overlooked. I shouldn't be this shocked, you don't have to look far to see racism. But yet I'm still shocked that this info has been so hidden, just slightly out of view. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |