Co-creation in theatre : an antidote to controversy in democracy ?

When dis­cus­sing eco­lo­gy, poli­tics or various social issues, have you ever felt like you were tal­king to a brick wall ? The use and misuse of pes­ti­cides in agri­cul­ture or the role of tech­no­lo­gy in com­ba­ting glo­bal war­ming, for example. In an increa­sin­gly pola­ri­sed socie­ty, deba­ting with people who do not share our values can some­times become impos­sible. This trend is ampli­fied by the pro­li­fe­ra­tion of “echo cham­bers”¹, spaces where we only inter­act with people who share our beliefs. This has given rise to a new dis­ci­pline : the socio­lo­gy of contro­ver­sy, which stu­dies dif­ferent points of view and the contexts in which they are expres­sed. So how can we re-esta­blish dialogue ?

This ques­tion is cen­tral to the research conduc­ted by Syl­vie Bou­chet, a doc­tor of psy­cho­lo­gy and lec­tu­rer at Paris Dau­phine Uni­ver­si­ty, and Oli­vier Four­nout, a senior lec­tu­rer in com­mu­ni­ca­tion sciences at the Inter­dis­ci­pli­na­ry Ins­ti­tute for Innovation/CNRS at Télé­com Paris (IP Paris). In Le Champ des pos­sibles², they stu­dy how the col­lec­tive crea­tion of a play can help to re-esta­blish dia­logue within popu­la­tions frag­men­ted by intense conflicts. The pro­ject takes the form of artis­tic pro­duc­tions car­ried out in 2018 by groups of pro­fes­sio­nals – far­mers, envi­ron­men­tal acti­vists, entre­pre­neurs, experts, public and pri­vate sec­tor admi­nis­tra­tors, and asso­cia­tion lea­ders – all acti­ve­ly invol­ved in a contro­ver­sial issue. The aim was to work toge­ther to create 25-minute plays focu­sing on divi­sive issues such as pes­ti­cides in agri­cul­ture and the impact of tech­no­lo­gy on glo­bal war­ming. Those invol­ved were given free rein to stage their own plays, which they write and per­form themselves.

Two years after its crea­tion, half of the par­ti­ci­pants consi­der that some­thing has chan­ged in the way they view them­selves in rela­tion to the controversy.

The book is accom­pa­nied by the results of a sur­vey of par­ti­ci­pants, which aimed to assess how the joint crea­tive work had “chan­ged their per­cep­tion of the debate, the other pro­ta­go­nists and the facts of the issue”³. In addi­tion, a second sur­vey⁴ was conduc­ted in July 2020 to detail the long-term effects of the expe­rience. Among the fin­dings : two years after the crea­tion, “half of the par­ti­ci­pants (56%) think that some­thing has chan­ged in the way they posi­tion them­selves on the contro­ver­sial issue⁵,” and the mul­tiple levels of change are specified.

Oli­vier Four­nout. The star­ting point is the obser­va­tion that in our socie­ties, divi­sions and contro­ver­sy are constant­ly fuel­led by the media and social net­works. There are divi­sions and irre­con­ci­lable dif­fe­rences. When faced with any rea­li­ty – even scien­ti­fic and reco­gni­sed ones – we are drawn into spi­rals of vio­lence, both poli­ti­cal­ly and ethi­cal­ly. Dif­ferent groups of people in conflict no lon­ger talk to each other, or only talk to those who share their views, igno­ring what is hap­pe­ning around them. These divi­ded socie­ties are stu­died by the socio­lo­gy of controversy.

Based on this obser­va­tion, my pers­pec­tive has been to help citi­zens and stu­dents engage with contro­ver­sial issues in order to unders­tand their under­lying causes and try to over­come them. After stu­dying them and some­times expe­rien­cing them first-hand, those invol­ved take part in the crea­tion of a col­lec­tive thea­tri­cal pro­duc­tion dea­ling with the issue. This approach is accom­pa­nied by a cen­tral research ques­tion : how does the pro­cess of col­lec­tive artis­tic crea­tion change the expe­rience of the people invol­ved ? What can theatre pro­duc­tion spe­ci­fi­cal­ly contri­bute in terms of repre­sen­ting issues, and how can this be made acces­sible to the audience ? Thanks to fun­ding from the ANR⁶, we were able to set up an empi­ri­cal stu­dy of these effects, enabling us to make them the sub­ject of research.

I have used this thea­tri­cal metho­do­lo­gy more than 150 times : with stu­dents and citi­zens, but also, on seve­ral occa­sions, with pro­fes­sio­nal actresses on the sub­ject of trans­hu­ma­nism⁷. The col­lec­tive crea­tion pro­cess is well esta­bli­shed. A 50-minute docu­men­ta­ry fil­med in 2018 recounts this pro­cess⁸. Each time, we start with a socie­tal phe­no­me­non that has been stu­died and/or expe­rien­ced. The crea­tion time is short. In two days, the par­ti­ci­pants create a 20–25-minute play and per­form it in front of an audience. There is a lot of impro­vi­sa­tion, inclu­ding in the final per­for­mance. People who, in most cases, have never done theatre before can find them­selves at ease impro­vi­sing and per­for­ming very accu­ra­te­ly, in a very live­ly and natu­ral way, as oppo­sed to reci­ting a text they have lear­ned by heart. The sta­ging choices, acting and text are left enti­re­ly up to the crea­tive groups. The faci­li­ta­tors pro­vide feed­back, but the group and its col­lec­tive dimen­sion always have the final say. The rules of the game are sha­red with the group in advance, and crea­ti­vi­ty flou­rishes within this fra­me­work. I tes­ted this col­lec­tive crea­tion for­mat for the first time in 2009, in a high­ly inno­va­tive course for the Corps des Mines, com­bi­ning field geo­lo­gy, theatre and obser­va­tion of group dyna­mics. This course, which still exists, gave rise to a paper in edu­ca­tio­nal sciences in 2011⁹.

To return to the issue of mar­riage equa­li­ty, we publi­shed a research paper in 2017 with Valé­rie Beau­douin on this thea­tri­cal pro­duc­tion that was sta­ged in 2013¹⁰. What was par­ti­cu­lar­ly stri­king about the group of stu­dents who took part was that most of those who had volun­ta­ri­ly signed up to dra­ma­tise this contro­ver­sial issue were dee­ply concer­ned about the sub­ject. Stu­dents came to sign up saying that they could no lon­ger dis­cuss it among them­selves and wan­ted to open up the dia­logue. That’s why they signed up, and one student in par­ti­cu­lar confi­ded that she felt very dee­ply about the sub­ject. This lent a spe­cial tone to the work done by this group of stu­dents, because it wasn’t just about stu­dying the issue. The crea­tive pro­cess brought some­thing dee­ply felt to the surface.

For ques­tions about pes­ti­cides and whe­ther tech­no­lo­gy helps or hin­ders the fight against cli­mate change, we had the means to conduct a sur­vey and objec­ti­ve­ly assess the effects on the par­ti­ci­pants in the col­lec­tive crea­tion. The play on pes­ti­cides fea­tu­red an orga­nic far­mer, ano­ther who treats his more than 100 hec­tares with gly­pho­sate, a tech­ni­cal advi­sor for large farms, an envi­ron­men­tal acti­vist, the head of an asso­cia­tion, a doc­tor regis­te­red with an agri­cul­tu­ral health insu­rance fund who is him­self a wine­gro­wer. With this panel, we achie­ved the highest pos­sible level of repre­sen­ta­tion on the sub­ject. It was chal­len­ging and uncom­pro­mi­sing, because there was a real divide at the out­set, with par­ti­ci­pants afraid of being atta­cked. For example, the far­mer who sprayed his fields with gly­pho­sate thought he was going to be “lyn­ched”. In a way, we have an empi­ri­cal bree­ding ground where we start from a very dis­tant point in terms of divi­sion and the risk of hurt feelings.

For the play on mar­riage equa­li­ty, we were unable to conduct a sur­vey of stu­dents on the col­lec­tive crea­tion pro­cess at the time, but the content of the play itself reflects very posi­tive results. Although they didn’t agree with each other at all, the stu­dents mana­ged to draw a frieze with six dif­ferent repre­sen­ta­tions of couples, which were pro­jec­ted during the play and which Valé­rie Beau­douin and I repro­du­ced in our article. In a way, the play gave birth to a model of diver­si­ty, even though the stu­dents disa­greed about these repre­sen­ta­tions in the public space. Ano­ther achie­ve­ment is the name the theatre com­pa­ny gave itself, “theatre for all”, which neat­ly sums up the uni­fying power of theatre, in the same way that a Sha­kes­peare play brings toge­ther Fal­staff and the future Hen­ry V in a tavern. In short, the stu­dents mana­ged to find com­mon ground through theatre, where the sub­ject mat­ter was divi­sive, which is both tou­ching and effective.

Chan­ging people’s minds is not some­thing that can be set as an impo­sed objec­tive. What we obser­ved in our second sur­vey conduc­ted in 2020 was that, after the col­lec­tive crea­tion pro­cess, there was a much bet­ter unders­tan­ding of the context and logic behind other people’s posi­tions, a sen­si­ti­vi­ty to per­so­nal sto­ries and an open­ness to dia­logue with people with whom it had pre­vious­ly been impos­sible to dis­cuss these issues. From expo­sure to oppo­sing posi­tions, ini­tial­ly per­cei­ved as the worst ene­mies in the conflict, empa­thy and emo­tion even­tual­ly emerge, which is a fan­tas­tic result. Fan­tas­tic, because this ini­tial result paves the way for cog­ni­tive advances : two years after the expe­riment, 70% of par­ti­ci­pants said they had lear­ned things in terms of “reflec­tion” and “thoughts”.

The key point here is undoub­ted­ly the pro­cess of thea­tri­cal crea­tion, which brings toge­ther people who no lon­ger talk to each other in real life and creates a com­mon object around which dia­logue can take place. Indeed, the contro­ver­sial ele­ments of the play, such as the theme of pes­ti­cides, are inter­t­wi­ned with the obli­ga­tion to create a play toge­ther. This obli­ga­tion, which is stron­ger than the sub­jects of disa­gree­ment, makes it pos­sible to rebuild rela­tion­ships, or to build what I call in the book a “rela­tio­nal eco­lo­gy”, which becomes the condi­tion for any real pro­gress. In short, we must first work on the eco­lo­gy of human rela­tions to achieve results in the eco­lo­gy of nature, which requires everyone’s contri­bu­tion in the search for solu­tions. The thea­tri­cal pro­cess makes it pos­sible to res­tore a form of alliance to suc­cess­ful­ly co-create the play – a play which is itself a dia­logue that addresses the root of the problem.

One of the limi­ta­tions of the approach is that theatre is a very ephe­me­ral dis­ci­pline that requires a lot of resources to be per­for­med again. For example, we sta­ged two plays in the Deux-Sèvres region, in part­ner­ship with a CNRS agroe­co­lo­gy “Zone Ate­lier” (Centre d’Étude Bio­lo­gique de la Forêt de Chi­zé) and WISION, a com­pa­ny spe­cia­li­sing in media­tion in rural areas. The sub­ject was the rela­tion­ship bet­ween far­mers and local resi­dents. The plays were crea­ted and per­for­med by far­mers and local resi­dents, joi­ned by a few stu­dents. The two plays we fil­med¹¹ went very well, and we par­ted ways saying that we should per­form them again. Howe­ver, the will and resources to do so are not neces­sa­ri­ly there, and fin­ding venues is dif­fi­cult. It is a very power­ful pro­cess on an exis­ten­tial, emo­tio­nal and affec­tive level, invol­ving the body, but one that is not easi­ly repeated.

We need mecha­nisms that work on rela­tion­ships in order to then work on changes in prac­tices and values.

In 2020, in the mid­st of the COVID lock­down, we set up a dia­logue plat­form cal­led Zig­Zag­Zoom¹² with Cyrille Bom­bard, who works as a social media­tor. We bring toge­ther three people in favour of a posi­tion and three people against it, with a par­ti­ci­pa­to­ry audience of ten to fif­teen people. We always come to the same conclu­sion : changes in beha­viour and atti­tudes can only come about if we first work on the rela­tio­nal ground­work. This result is pro­ba­bly gene­ra­li­sable. It is not expert dis­course, howe­ver nume­rous and com­petent, that brings about change. If it did, many pro­blems would alrea­dy have been sol­ved. What does bring about change, howe­ver, is first and fore­most buil­ding rela­tion­ships based on mutual unders­tan­ding. We need mecha­nisms that work on rela­tion­ships to then work on chan­ging prac­tices and values.

The par­ti­ci­pants in our 2020 sur­vey were disap­poin­ted by the fra­me­work of the expe­riment, which they had expec­ted to sup­port them after the col­lec­tive theatre expe­rience. This is indeed a limi­ta­tion that I have not been able to address, as the research is high­ly dependent on fun­ding that is limi­ted in time and per pro­ject. When fun­ding stops, there is no fol­low-up because resources are sud­den­ly cut off. For example, I can no lon­ger work with my col­league, a social media­tor who would like to conti­nue the effort to anchor the changes that have been ini­tia­ted and keep the pro­gramme alive over the long term.

In our 2018 play about pes­ti­cides, a new mytho­lo­gi­cal cha­rac­ter appea­red : “the lit­tle sick field”. This cha­rac­ter was crea­ted by the troupe. It is not men­tio­ned in any of the ency­clo­pae­dias of the ima­gi­na­tion that I have consul­ted. It is a crea­tion from this play which may one day change the world. Pla­cing a fic­tio­nal device such as “the lit­tle sick field” at the centre of the sto­ry is alrea­dy a way of lear­ning how to heal it. Seeing is alrea­dy doing, as research on mir­ror neu­rons tends to show¹³. Thus, fic­tio­nal actions on a theatre stage, espe­cial­ly when they have been crea­ted by the very people invol­ved in society’s pro­blems, open the way to over­co­ming divi­sions. They ins­pire us to build a com­mon future toge­ther. This is undoub­ted­ly a neces­sa­ry and essen­tial condi­tion for sol­ving problems.

Interview by Lucille Caliman