July 2008. 

We had set up our stage at a school in the Midlands for the 156th performance of the year.  As the students poured into the hall, I noticed that a young man had moved his chair and was now blocking the actors’ entrance, so I politely asked him to move.

“What’s this about sir?”

“You’ll see.”

“Is it about abortion?”

“Partly.  It’s about pregnancy, relationships.  It’s about love.”

“My girlfriend’s had an abortion.”

The simplicity and matter-of-factness of the statement took me by surprise.  At first I didn’t believe him.  This lad looked so young and fresh-faced and innocent, I suppose.  He had spots and puppy fat.  I thought he was taking me for a ride at first, but he was deadly serious.

The lad introduced me to his girlfriend sat next to him, or I should say ex-girlfriend.  She was equally young and vulnerable, her left arm noticeably damaged by a series of long cuts, presumably self-inflicted.

“It’s true,” she said.  “I was thinking of keeping it, but he told me to get rid of it.”

“I’m only fifteen,” he said.  “I don’t want to be a Dad.”

I’m not sure what surprised me the most.  Was it that their young look was so incongruous with the seriousness of their experience?  Was it that they chose to be so openly frank with a virtual stranger about some of the most intimate things one can talk about?  Or was it that the damage that had been inflicted on them by the world, and the damage they had inflicted on each other, was so palpable? The young man spoke:

“Do you see that girl over there?”  He pointed to a girl in the bank of seats opposite, facing him.  “She’s two months pregnant.  I’ve told her that getting rid of it is easy.”

“What are you saying about me!?”  The pregnant girl shouted across the room.  She clearly knew we were talking about her.

“Get rid of it!”  He shouted back, giggling.  The pregnant girl and her mate next to her giggled too.

My mind was racing.  It was moments before the play “Babies” was about to begin and I was struck by the prevalence and importance and urgency of these issues in the lives of the young people in that school hall.  I felt so inadequate and the play, “Babies”, to which I have dedicated the last two years of my life, seemed inadequate too.

I was given the nod by the teacher to begin, so I stood in front of the group and introduced the play.

* * *

“Babies” is a powerful play.  I’ve been told this countless of times over the months and years.  It strikes a deep chord with young people and adults alike.  Recently, within the same week, we performed to parents in Hackney, students at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire and young men in Feltham Young Offenders Institute in London.  Despite the differences in age, privilege and deprivation, the way in which we present the deeply personal issues of sex and relationships, marriage and family life, resonates deeply with core human experience.

Yet on that morning in the school in the Midlands, as a result of a chance conversation with a young fifteen-year-old lad, I was more acutely aware of the desperate need for words of encouragement, support and healing, words which many of these young people may have rarely or never heard before.  I started to listen to this play – this play which I wrote when I was 24 and which I’ve seen performed hundreds of times – I started to listen to it in a new way.

Within the first few moments of the play, Annie tells her boyfriend Joe that she is pregnant.  It is a jagged, emotional moment of theatre and the audience are hooked into the story.  As I looked around the school hall, 150 fourteen and fifteen year olds were captured.  I looked at the girl two months pregnant.  The tension was seizing her body.  She wanted to giggle out of nervousness but she couldn’t because she knew that this was too serious.  This story was about her.  I looked at the young man who moments earlier had enlightened me about the most intimate areas of his life.  I think I saw him blush.  This story is about him too.

“Babies” focuses as much on the parents as it does on the young couple.  After Annie gets a less than enthusiastic reaction from Joe, she speaks to her Dad.  Despite wanting to support, her Dad is so far removed from Annie and her life that he just gets angry because his ‘baby’ is having a baby herself.  Annie is left devastated by his reaction.  Joe on the other hand takes over a week to tell his Mum.  When he does he hears a story which changes him profoundly: his own mother was moments away from having him aborted.  Vitalised, Joe arranges to meet Annie.  He has a new view of the world, a new view of life.  Gently, he tells Annie that he wants to support her; he wants her to have the baby.  Annie, shaken and exhausted after an emotional week, tells Joe that she has already had the abortion, two days earlier.

As the play ended, the audience was left in stunned silence.  I stole a look at the young man and the young woman.  They were both looking thoughtful and reflective, but it was a look that was shared by the 150 other students; I had not been privileged enough to have a glimpse of their lives and so I didn’t know what personal stories they had brought into the room.

The second part of the session, as always, was a discussion, initially just with the students and then with the characters of Annie and Joe.  It amazes me how many young people, and occasionally teachers, actually think that this really is Annie and Joe, rather than actors in role.  It is a methodology which encourages open discussion.  It is a great privilege to hear young people grappling with these deeply personal and difficult issues, and this day was no different.

***

At the end of the session, I asked the young man what he thought.  His manner was very different to how it was before the play.  Somehow, strangely, he seemed older.

“It was alright,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

His shrug and dismissive response could have been enough to make me content that he had been at least somehow affected by what he saw, but I wanted to know more.

“But what do you think the story was saying?” I asked him.

He thought for a moment.  “It was about relationships, wasn’t it?”

“What about relationships?”

“Well, sex.  It means something, doesn’t it?  It’s more than just a bit of fun.  It’s about families, isn’t it?  But I wasn’t ready to be a Dad though.  I’m only fifteen.”

“Do you think you were ready to have sex?”

He shrugged.  “No.”

At that moment, the pregnant girl from across the room joined us.  From a distance she looked hard and aggressive, but close up she was just as young and as innocent-looking as the rest of them.

“I’m Martin,” I said as a shook her hand.  “What did you think of the play?”

She looked nervous.  “It was good.”

“Your friend here tells me that you’re two months’ pregnant?”

“He reckons I should get rid of it.”

“What do you think?”

She shrugged.  “Dunno.” 

I looked at her straight in the eyes.   “You know Annie in the play had no-one to talk to?” I said.  “Have you spoken to anyone about this?”

“Only this lot,” she said, meaning her friends.

“What about your teachers?”

“They don’t know.”

“Listen,” I said, “you’re going through a huge amount at the moment and you need people, good people, to help you and support you.  Your friends can only give you so much.”  As I was saying this I could see that her fragile exterior was beginning to crumble and she was getting upset.  “Do you want me to introduce you to someone who will listen?”

She faltered for a moment, then said, “Ok.”

As a company, we aim to work in partnership with other organisations which offer appropriate care and counselling to deal with the sensitive issues that our plays often open.  On this particular occasion, we had arranged for a counsellor to speak to the students after the play.  I was able to put this young girl in direct face-to-face contact with the counsellor.

***

In all honesty, what we do in schools feels painfully inadequate.  We go into the school, run our session, pack down and move on to the next school.  We rarely see the long-term impact of our work on the young people.  However, we are greatly encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers.  They testify to the importance and uniqueness of what we do; they tell us that our method and approach engages the students in a way which is virtually impossible in a normal classroom environment.  Since launching the company 18 months ago, we have worked with over 45,000 young people throughout the UK and we hope that what we do has had countless of positive reverberations.

And yet a feeling of inadequacy prevails.  We want to do more.  The vision for the project far outweighs our current means and we need to increase our capacity in order to sustain and grow.  Our vision includes continuing and expanding our work in secondary schools; developing clear and insightful integrated resources for teachers; engaging parents through evening sessions; providing training for teachers to help their delivery of our resources; developing methods for monitoring and evaluation; creating new material for primary schools; expanding further into secondary schools.

We have already exceeded our projections for the first two years of business and Ten Ten Theatre has great potential to grow.  On the following pages, we have outlined our vision for the future and our capacity to achieve this vision.  Ultimately, within the next three years, we are aiming to reach a level of financial self-sustainability, and we are already well on the way to achieving this.   If you are able, we hope that you will consider supporting our work in some way.

Martin O'Brien

August 2008