When we first planned our website we wanted to write something about what theatre O was, why we do what we do, what motivates us.  Looking back it seems that everything we wrote still goes;

Theatre O is constantly changing and evolving and for that reason it’s very hard to define exactly what it is we do.  People’s need to ‘define’ is often what stops the process of growing, of innovation.  The moment we try to define what we are, we would already be betraying that definition.  So each show defines itself, both in the form of its creation and the language of its presentation.

We are constantly learning and endeavour to apply that learning to the next project.  We must always push ourselves to take risks.  Hopefully these risks will bring moments of greatness, as well as moments of spectacular failure and desperation – but it is these moments of failure and desperation that provoke the most exciting work.

The one constant, however, is the idea of the ‘company’, the ensemble, the collaboration.  The successful makeup of this group is often the hardest and most painful thing to achieve;  If done well,  then half the battle is already won.  The absolute commitment of everyone involved is essential.  That commitment brings an ownership of the work that will bring unparalleled results.  We are interested in the actor as creator, not as a puppet.

Quite simply, theatre O is only as good and as exciting as the sum of the people who are involved in the creation of the company’s work.

I think it’s apt that I’m moved to re-examine this today, today being the day that so many companies are finding out what the next 3 years hold for them, or whether they’ll continue to exist at all.

We opted not to apply for RFO status.  We have spent the last 10 years with an idea in our heads of what we wanted our ‘company’ to be.  Part of this was the desire to be a self-contained unit – conceive the work, develop it and produce it ourselves.  Our rules.  We managed to do this – not prolifically, but we did it.  But it was, on the whole, a nightmare.  We made certain choices along the way that probably didn’t help us in a practical sense.  The idea of an autonomous company never really developed, and although we have always tried to push ourselves creatively, we were constantly stuck between 2 worlds without really being in either.

As a company associated with the Barbican and the BITE program, it was assumed that we had infrastructure and financial backing.  Of course we had project funding to make that particular piece of work, but the reality is that in organisational (and financial) terms, you always end up back at zero.  If we had made work that realistically reflected our means, we would never have even approached the ambition of, for example, collaborating with Enda Walsh and the Abbey Theatre on our show Delirium.

At the same time, all of our shows, except our first one 3 Dark Tales, have suffered from a severe lack of organisational infrastructure behind them.  With the creative team constantly being torn by having to fulfil all these roles at once, each of the shows has been frustrated in its artistic aims.  Of course it goes without saying that, in my view, that it’s pretty much impossible to achieve the ‘perfection’ that you imagine in your head, but in the struggle to do so you can hit upon some pretty amazing things.  But for these struggles and frustrations to come from predominantly organisational flaws rather than lack of creative skill or ambition, is something that I deeply regret.

Our most recent show, Delirium, was the most exciting piece of work we’ve made.  It’s also the piece that I’d want most to have another run at.  We made it in an oxygen starved environment which gradually sucked all the joy out of it.  The blame for this ultimately lies with me, but I feel very strongly that if we’d had a solid infrastructure supporting us, we could have spent more time being creative than the ‘creatives’ having to carry the administrative burden as well with all the problems that brings.

Two years after Delirium and our creative urge was flapping about like an oxygen starved fish, whilst we struggled to find enough money to pay for storage, overheads and all the other costs related to having a ‘company’.  Applications for money to make new work were rejected despite being ‘excellent’ and ‘highly recommended’ for funding.  So we had to make a decision; throw in the towel, re-train as… as what? Anything that made our lives feel somehow valid.  Or re-think.

So we re-thought.  I have no idea whether it was the right decision.  What did we want theatre O to be?  Throughout everything, theatre O has been myself and Carolina.  All the impulses and ideas start with us.  So at its core, that’s what it is – us.  And we want to create work that originates from us and our vision of the world.  We want to realise that work with people who share and enhance that vision, people who inspire us.  We want to create an environment in which they/we are able to do that.  Therefore theatre O becomes that group of artists working together to create something utterly unique to them.

We want to do that without being an organisation, an institution. In our experience, it is that side of things that has slowly but surely ground us down and crushed the creative spirit out of us.  The point at which we decided to let go of the idea of theatre O ‘the organisation’ was revelatory. Ok, it meant trashing all our old sets and relinquishing a very important dream, but the instant we did it, the ideas started to flow again.  Suddenly we were having conversations about shows and stories rather than fucking Arts Council applications or our non-existent relationship with the only real funding body in the country for companies like ours.  We weren’t stressing about how we were going to survive for the next week, but were starting to remember that we are artists and that we should be driven by our passion for telling stories and creating theatre, rather than by the next funding application.

I appreciate that this is pretty naive.  We’ve had a ton of ideas for new projects, but the one idea that doesn’t really exist is how the hell we’re going to make them happen.  Carolina and I have 2 children together, a mortgage, a car – all things that require some sort of level-headedness and thoughts towards the future.  But the fact is we were so fucking miserable and despite trying very hard, unable to hide it.  It doesn’t matter how well you talk the talk, if underneath you feel seething resentment towards the world, people can tell!

There are now parts of our lives that are dedicated to the more practical things – we both do work outside of theatre O in order to earn enough money to survive.  But the naive space, the really joyful space is reserved for theatre O.  We have absolutely no idea if this will result in any new work actually being made, but we’ve got a shit load of good ideas and it’s our full intention to find someone, some theatre, some organisation, some producer, to help us make them.  And if they don’t?  Well, we’re not going to stop having ideas or being creative and getting excited about the endless possibilities of great, story-telling, inventive and inspirational theatre.  That, after all, is what we do.