Performers Sadiq Ali and David Banks (Fox) and director Pete Lannon talk upcoming touring show ‘Stuntman’: “We see violence as something inherently masculine, and I don’t think that’s true”

The award-winning Scottish company SUPERFAN brings this new dance montage exploring the concept of masculinity and its traditional understanding. Guillermo Nazara chats with the show’s creators to learn more about the development of a piece that doesn’t pull its punches back when conveying its message.

How did the idea for the show come about?

DB: A lot of the origin in the idea, and where we’re at as a collective when making it, is to create something using these silly stunts to create this larger-than-life spectacle. But the more we discuss, the more we explore material, so we began to add subtract and create something else. We started to explore my background in combat sports and the way I grew up, Pete’s connection to violent media and how it makes him feel a bit more uncomfortable despite its enjoyment, and Sadiq’s upbringing, as well as a tendency towards violet games. As three people socialised as males, we began to ask deeper questions and create bigger content about those things. So, in many ways, Stuntman started in one place and ended up somewhere else. There’s this really big idea that men traditionally don’t speak about their problems and just do stuff, I think one of the biggest ironies in terms of how Stuntman was made is we’re very much trying to do stuff rather than speaking about our problems or our connections to things, so what we’ve done is we’ve attempted to do that, we’ve put it into material and packaged it into a lot more. 

PL: We wanted to try and examine stunts or fight sequences by staging them in a different context. Then it really developed from this sense of discomfort – I love a violent action movie or a video game where the main action is violence but feel horrified by it in real life and exhausted by the implied threat I often feel in interactions with other men. I wanted to try and figure that out, and examine that tension, and to work with these other brilliant men who have their own complicated and unique relationships to violence.

Violence and masculinity. Why do you think both terms have been traditionally associated with each other?

PL: I think we see violence as something inherently masculine, and I don’t think that’s true – it’s just something that’s become part of our culture and society because of the ways men have traditionally been allowed to express themselves. Violence is often used as a tool of oppression and men have historically been the oppressor, so it’s become part of our myth of masculinity and of power, and then I think it’s been sold to men as something to look up to.

Will the show also explore how male victims of violence are often disregarded by society?

SA: The show doesn’t take any direct political look at the position within society for male victims of violence. However, it does give us an access route into communicating and sharing journeys with young people who, for example, have experienced male violence. Particularly, I would highlight our performances at Polmont Young Offenders Institute, and the ability for this work to cross from theatre space to prisons and how unique that is.

PL: It does in a way, yes. It looks at some of the different kinds of violence men experience and the consequences of that violence and I think tries to ask: now what? How do we solve this problem? It’s not about portraying men as victims in the way that we see in alt-right ‘manosphere’ spaces online – it’s about acknowledging the roles men have as both victim and perpetrator of violence in all kinds of ways, and that men have work to do, we have to be part of the solution to the problem of the patriarchy.

Does the piece serve as advocacy for men’s mental health?

DB: The work draws attention to events and happenings and things that lead to a decline in men’s mental health, but I also think it draws attention to things that can be very positive and contribute to mental health and well-being. We try and look at things in two ways, whether it’s combat sports, leadership roles, friendships, camaraderie, arguably tribalism… On one hand, we look those things and how they can contribute in a positive way, but we also look at how those things can contribute in a negative way.

PL: I think it probably does, though I don’t think we’re explicitly trying to advocate for mental health. The show takes a kind of playful look at the impact that violence (in all its forms) has on men and that includes the mental health impact. I think of it more like a kind of questioning – I hope that it invites the audience to interrogate their own relationship to violence and to masculinity.

What other themes have you attempted to explore through the piece?

DB: There are a lot of things that make up a human and there’s been quite a lot of humans working and contributing to the creation of this show, so we’ve explored a lot from our queer identities: what type of media and entertainment we engage with, our politics, how we feel contemporary theatre should be presented, and how it can access broader audiences than it’s currently engaging.

PL: There’s so much that the show touches on because masculinity and violence are such huge, complicated themes that don’t just sit in isolation, they’re connected to all these other aspects of identity, like sexuality, race, and class, which all exist in the context of the capitalist structures that surround us. We actually tried to keep it quite tightly focused as a show — to be really clear with ourselves, what the lens was that we were looking at through all of this. But of course because we’re working with our real-life experiences it’s all intersectional, it doesn’t just exist in a vacuum, and our experiences with violence and our masculinity are all different because they’re connected to all of those other things.

What can you tell us about the approach to the piece from a stylistic perspective?

DB: I’m really into this idea, this thing known as liveness, where you truly feel like you’re there with a performer. The public most commonly gets this reaction when they go see their favourite band, when it feels like they’re not just playing their songs, they’re doing that set and they’re with you so stylistically. We really pushed to recreate that with moments in the show. I think about the style in which this has been put together as a scrapbook, as a visual mood board where we’ve taken these different elements and themes and pulled them together. We also look at the histories of things like action movies and violent media, which brings us to the 80’s with the beautifully queer choreography that we create to Bonnie Tyler’s I Need A Hero; it brings us to the 90’s with Bad Boys, as we circle around with our guns out ready to kill; it brings us to early days videogames from Duke Nuke’em right the way up to modern day games like Metal Gear Solid so all these things have informed it and we see it in the soundtrack which draws upon everything from animé to modern movies, we see it in the lighting where we have everything from 3D to those sharp Hollywood lights.

PL: Yes, there’s this sort of scrapbook, collage approach to the structure in terms of us scavenging all of these action movie or video game references and placing it next to these personal stories. We really wanted to try and stage these action sequences in a way that felt live, like David says, and that also captured the fun of them as well as the ridiculous nature of these tropes and masculine icons, to counterbalance with the more complicated real-life experiences of violence. There’s an emphasis on play and on the physical relationship between David and Sadiq that I think is also about the ways in mainstream culture that men are “allowed” to be physical with each other and the types of physicality we still don’t see so much.

What are the reasons behind that particular approach?

PL: We never wanted to lecture the audience, so it feels important to us that the show is fun the way a good (or bad) action movie is, because that’s partly what we’re trying to unpick: why is that fun, when violence in real life is so often the opposite? It would feel dishonest to just make a show about how violent media is bad for us. The stylistic approach of having these playful, setup action sequences and then these more stripped-back, personal moments is also about exploring the performance of those roles and of masculinity. You see the performers put on all these different masculine personas as well as being very vulnerable.

What creative challenges have you faced with this show specifically?

DB: The most complicated thing is speaking of people’s experiences without speaking on behalf of them, which is why so much of the material is drawn from call and response to autobiographies of those who created it. So, we explore our own truths and there’s a truth to the background that we’ve had growing up that lends itself to the performance and it gives it an authenticity that people see when they come and see the show. I would say beyond that there’s always been financial challenges to creativity in terms of getting the correct level of support — put plainly, it’s sometimes hard to make these things and more specifically the amount of sacrifice and financial hardship that a lot of people have to face to get these things off the ground is why we see such large class inequality in the arts.

PL: Yeah, working with autobiography there is always the challenge of ensuring you treat people’s experiences with care, and balancing that with what the show needs. We don’t want to sensationalize people’s real lives in order to make the show more dramatic, and we’re also not trying to make something that’s therapeutic. So, it takes a lot of editing and conversation, and collaboration to get to a place where it feels like you’re honouring the real experience; but also, it’s working for the audience and within the structure of the show. However, the creative team are all so generous and experienced that it has resulted in some really beautiful work that I’m super proud of, that is also staying true to our stories.

Are there any highlights in the show you’d like to flag?

DB: I have two moments, the first one is sweaty broken and ready for battle, music inspired by fist of the north star comes in and we draw our samurai swords, we stand off, we get ready, and one of us is cut in half. The other moment is Bonnie Tyler.

PL: I love the samurai moment, too — it was just pure joy making that with our incredible sound designer and composer, Richy Carey. I also love both David and Sadiq’s solo storytelling moments later in the show, for very different reasons – especially, Sadiq’s funeral.

What’s the message you’re trying to convey through the piece ultimately?

DB: You’re not alone, I see you.

Why come see Stuntman?

DB: You could have a PHD in performance art, you could love action movies, you could be my cousin, my dad, my best friend, the people I grew up with, my partner or whoever is reading this right now and you’ll enjoy this show

PL: It’s a fun, silly show that also packs a punch. I think it gives audiences lots to think about while also being a good night out.

Production pictures credit to Brian Hartley.

Stuntman will tour across the UK from 17 September to 18 October. Tickets are available on the following link.

By Guillermo Nazara