Getting a grip on group dynamics in new play

Carmel Winters’ latest play explores how new communities are created when people are displaced by conflicts and war, says Colette Sheridan.

Group dynamics in a desperate life-threatening situation are at the heart of playwright Carmel Winters’ latest work which she has written for the National Youth Theatre (NYT).

Commissioned by the Abbey Theatre, Salt Mountain has a cast of 16 young people, ranging in age from 16 to 20. The actors are from all over the country with four of them — Catherine Blake, Éabha Landers, James Ronayne and Liadh O’Donovan — hailing from Cork.

The play, which Winters describes as being “nearly a Brechtian epic where the themes are overt rather than covert” is about what happens when a community is displaced.

“It’s not post-apocalyptic in the sense that there hasn’t been an apocalypse although there might as well have been as far as the personal experiences go.

"It’s about people who are driven out of their fertile valley base to the top of a mountain in freezing conditions as a result of war. As time progresses and their stores dwindle, their very survival is threatened.”

Winters has given the characters Arabic names and says audiences could decide it’s set in Palestine.

“But I didn’t set it in a specific place as one could get into contested detail and political debate if I had done that. I didn’t think it would be really valid to do that for youth theatre so I have abstracted the play.

"I imagine in future productions of the play, people could decide to pin their colours to the mast. That’s valid but it isn’t something I wanted to do.”

Influenced by accounts of the Siege of Leningrad during the Second World War with people cut off and living in sub-zero temperatures, Winters is also absorbing current global events.

“You can’t be oblivious to what is going on. It’s on the edge of our consciousness all the time. I wanted to bring it home in a way that people can engage with. For the young actors, engaging with their everyday reality is not something they want to do.”

Winters is interested in how “new communities are created when people are displaced in conflicts and war. The qualities of people become key in matters of life or death. In the play, the characters are quite clear.

"They can’t be at the level of complexity that you’d find in a four-person play. When three or four of the group get together, the audience will know pretty quickly what agendas each of them is pushing. People will recognise what’s at stake very quickly and will perhaps invest in certain outcomes.”

Observing the young theatre group, Winters says she was intrigued by its ethos. “Its priority is group wellbeing over any particular individual-type of agenda. The young people are absolutely expert at sharing.

They share attention; they share time. We all know that young people aren’t always utterly inclusive, just like any population group. I noticed people who might ordinarily be excluded were absolutely not.

There is great equality there. I was riveted by the positive dividends earned through a sense of safe belonging.”

As for the play, Winters says the question of whether it rings a hopeful or bleak note for humanity is a matter of interpretation.

“Even though it’s not about the specifics of a conflict in time, it is still quite politically committed but not in the sense of deciding for the audience.

“Within the play, I was interested in how we bring out the best in each other. There’s a kind of faith in human potential. I became inspired by the group versus the individual and how the group manages individuals.”

The world premiere of Salt Mountain opens at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin on Monday, August 24-29.