Transport Theatre's Douglas Rintoul talks to Postscript about '1001 Nights.'

By Sophia Longhi

Transport is an internationally-minded touring company that produces and celebrates 'theatre without borders'. Theatre director, Douglas Rintoul, explains how cultural issues can be explored successfully through theatre and tells Sophia Longhi about Transport's current production for young people, 1001 Nights.

What inspired the internationally-minded ethos of the company?

I see the world as intrinsically interconnected. Nothing happens without an impact on some other place in the world. We are all international. Transport makes its work in Folkestone, a town in flux, in the process of redefining itself. It has a beautiful and complex history of transport/movement. It looks out to the Channel and the rest of Europe. So it became a natural and inspiring place to make our kind of work. I have always been obsessed with borders - to quote the architect Sunand Prasad ‘There is something about the edge: the edge of the land and water, of habitation and wilderness of safety and danger. Here possibilities abound that don’t exist in the security of the interior’. I’m interested in narratives from ‘the edge’, how they start in the domestic, the local and spiral out into the national, international and epic.

Is this an ethos that you are keen to portray in all of your productions? Does it guide you to decide which plays to produce?

Yes, most of our work asks audiences to reflect on how do we define ourselves in an ever changing world? How our actions are defined by and define everything around us.

How does this influence your own devising and directing? Do you find it limits you in any way - for example, maybe you find yourself often visiting the same themes in your writing?

It shapes both the form and content considerably. Identity and what defines our sense of ourselves is a big question. I also think a platform for ‘hidden voices’ is imperative. We learn much about ourselves through the experiences of those on the margins. Often this is at the heart of our content - the exchange of experience. This is also our contract with our audience.

Do you find that your productions attract a certain type of audience, who may be like-minded? Maybe you have discovered this through feedback you have received?

No because we carefully construct our work to have a wide appeal. In the past we have chosen titles such as Arabian Nights of As You Like It to act as Trojan horses if you like. These titles attract wide audiences. Also our way of telling stories has a kind of magic which appeals to many. We have very diverse audiences.

Why is the diversity of the human experience a subject that interests you or one that is close to your heart?

The main beauty I see in the human race is our difference. Humanity is complex. These complexities reveal much about the journey of being human. We have created so many rituals, stories, structures, types of music and art to explore what it means to be human. If we truly saw the beauty in all of this I think the world would be a better place.

How can fundamental social issues be addressed through art? Why is that important and is this method of exploration something personal to you?

My feeling is we should all use our skills, whatever they are, to better the world even in some small way. I happen to be a theatre maker so I use these skills to achieve change. Fortunately theatre is an incredibly potent because it engages our imaginations and therefore our hearts. It’s the best change-maker.

How have children or young people influenced your art? Do you feel you as an adult have a responsibility in how we bring up children to view the world?

Making our first piece for young people was an illuminating experience. Young audiences are thrilling because they have little cynicism or censorship of the imagination. Theatre is about the power of the collective imagination. With adults you have to negotiate a few hurdles to get their imaginations working. Children are more ‘game’. If what you’re doing is honest and truthful they’re really up for the journey and they’ll go further. A mop will be a flying carpet if it’s invested in enough. It’s rewarding to be able to plant beautiful ideas in young minds.

Moving onto 1001 Nights - what was the original inspiration for this play? Was the inspiration based in the past (the traditional Islamic tales) or in the present (contemporary issues surrounding the Middle East)?

Last year I was approached by the Unicorn Theatre, London, to make a new play based on the collection of stories we know as The One Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights. These stories began as folk tales from the oral traditions of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, India, Persia and Mesopotamia. They were first written down as collections by unknown authors around 1,200 years ago. I only knew Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor. It was a daunting prospect because there are actually hundreds of stories. When approaching any classic text I always ask what do these stories mean to us today? This was the starting point for this production.

It is right to suggest that you have reinvented or reinvigorated the Arabian Nights-style folk tales for a new audience? Was this to make them more relevant for today's audiences or expose the relevance that they still bear?

On reading over 1,500 pages, it became clear that there was more to them than the memory I had of them from Disney films. They are so magical, surprising and touching. When you read them they’re real page turners, because they are totally unpredictable and very inventive. They have these brilliant flights within them. These stories - stories about stories, and stories within stories - seemed to have a magical power to make sense of our world; often exploring themes of war, exile, journey, loss, loneliness and reunification. Thinking about how alive these stories have been for hundreds of years, how they have time travelled and crossed countries, how they have constantly evolved, been changed and remade by storytellers, writers, film and theatre makers, it seemed fitting to make our own version; to allow them to exist as cultural heritage whilst also living in and reflecting on our own time.

Is it important for a young person to tell the story? Why?

Young audiences relate more directly to a protagonist is of their own age. It was also important to us to imagine war and conflict through a child’s eyes.

When 1001 Nights premiered last year at the Unicorn, it was critically well-received, earning a nomination for an Off West End Award for Best Production for Young People. What were the reactions from young people?

We’ve had such brilliant responses from our audiences. Most love the fart story! Most also really respond emotionally to the war narrative. They understand the situation in Syria because they’ve seen it on the news and they really take it on. The best response we’ve had was from a young boy who said, ‘if I was an MP (I wouldn’t want to be an MP), but if I was an MP I would send planes over and let them come here for free’.

What was the No Borders refugee camp in Calais like? What did you learn and how has it inspired your life and your work?

Its aim was to highlight the grim daily reality for migrants there and to protest against their increased repression. Meeting migrants (many of whom had traveled for over five or six months, fleeing their homelands and facing extraordinary dangers) I was struck by their joy, optimism and thirst for life, plus their sense of community and family. It inspired me to tell narratives about the incredible human capacity to endure. It makes one’s own life simpler.

You have worked with asylum seekers and migrants from all over the world. What is their reactions to your work? How do they feel about theatre being used to explore complex subjects?

We have received very touching and somewhat overwhelming feedback from migrant and asylum seeker audiences. These audiences have thanked us for giving their narratives a voice. It’s a tough one because our plays can’t change what they have experienced or what many will experience. What we do is tokenistic in terms of the kind of change that needs to occur. But it’s something.

How has the 1001 Nights project inspired your work for the future?

It’s reinvigorated me as a director. It’s inspired me to put a little more magic and imagination into my work for adults.

What is next for Transport?

We’re going to devise a new piece about the sea, The Edge is based on our residencies in Kent and India and is a love story between two people from different continents and cultures, their lives seemingly worlds apart, yet connected by weather patterns, tides, myths and the shared experience of a radically changing world. It will tour early 2015. We’re also going to make a new piece for young adults which we’re developing with The Egg theatre in Bath.

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