What stories should young people be telling?

I had a conversation a few days ago with a relative of a young person associated with the work of a youth theatre project. Without going into details (in the interests of preserving the anonymity of all parties), it was suggested that young people shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout of staging challenging, divisive or demanding issues.

While I am all for preserving playful and simple story-making as long as possible, I  was reminded irresistibly of my first drama teaching job. I worked for a year alongside my undergraduate studies at a local after school drama group, and I remember very clearly being instructed that working on the RSC’s adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses was too “dark” for my group of 15-16 year olds, and that I should consider staging Charlie & the Chocolate Factory with them instead.

There’s no getting away from the fact that Noughts & Crosses deals with some important and challenging issues: racism, interracial relationships, cultural supremacy, terrorism, forbidden love. It’s not pleasant reading (or performing): it asks us to consider deeply entrenched aspects of our own thinking, and our wider society, and it inevitably sparks a lot of debate and discussion. However, it’s well within the capabilities of a group of fifteen year olds to discuss these issues: Blackman’s books are actually written for a young adult audience, plus a number of the group were already studying the novels as part of their GCSE English programmes, plus – and this is the biggest point – it is no bad thing to challenge young people.

While I can understand, and sympathise with, the notion that young people and teenagers should be kept “safe” as long as possible, keeping them safe does not mean shielding them from difficult issues, or from discussing complex ideas, whether these are issues of sexuality, drug abuse, racism or problems within their communities. Exploring these issues within the framework of a rehearsal room discussion is positive and valuable, and, hopefully, allows young people to begin to formulate their own thoughts and opinions in a safe environment.

It’s also crucial for me to note here that young people – even teenagers who are in their first few years of high school – actively gravitate towards discussing these issues themselves. They want to talk about society, and sexuality, and racial tension, and bullying, and violence, and drug abuse, and complex issues of cultural heritage and feeling “a part” of something. They don’t want to make theatre about unicorns or chocolate rivers or Oompa-Loompas. They want to tell the story of the first time they were beaten up because they looked different, or discuss why they think the gender pay gap is a problem, or tell the slightly exaggerated story of the first time they evaded the cops with their mates.

I’ve had amazing, enthralling, stupid, hilarious, moving, touching stories from working with young people. I’ve been told stories of losing a loved one – stories that have made the rest of the group tear up. I’ve been told shocking stories – stories of young people who have been bullied or subjected to homophobic or racist abuse – I was also once told a chilling story about the discovery of a dead body, and the subsequent dealings with the police. Alongside these stories, I’ve also been told uplifting tales of overcoming personal battles: young people who got through the slog of their Duke of Edinburgh or called the ambulance when their friend went into labour or overcame their shyness to tell the girl in the corner shop that they thought she was pretty.

Just as an example, I’m currently working with a couple of different age groups experimenting with different storytelling into theatre techniques across a number of sessions. I have one group of lads who are making a dystopic parody about Donald Trump becoming president of the USA (a chilling possibility), a story about a boy’s first experience of homophobic abuse, and an anti-bullying propaganda piece being created, among other stories and short theatre pieces. My point is this: teenagers want to talk about these issues, because these are the issues that are important to them. These are the issues that they are surrounded by daily; these are problems that face them in school, in their communities, and in their online interactions. They are much, much more socially- and politically-minded than I ever was in school; they are smart, funny, enthusiastic, extreme in their beliefs of how to make things better, and they have lots of ideas. They shout and debate with gusto; they think that banning all currency or slashing footballers’ wages will solve all the world’s problems. I give them stimuli for discussion, but I never need to lead debates. They do this all by themselves.

Protecting the young people I work with is surely about providing them with a safe space in which they can explore challenging issues that they already experiencing on a daily basis. If we allow them to take the lead in creating the stories that they actually care about, we can give them a space where they can voice opinions, challenge each other, debate, and begin to find a way of articulating the things they care about.

The stories they care about are the ones that are directly affecting them now. They are worried about not getting jobs when they leave school. They are concerned that their interests are not prioritised by the current curriculum. Some of them feel like they can’t be themselves, or be honest about what they want to do in their lives, or who they fancy, or what music they listen to. Theatre is a place for all: stories are simultaneously a chance to articulate concerns and an opportunity to find, while constructing a narrative, a way of solving or discussing a problem.

Keeping young people safe means, in my opinion, giving them a voice, and a platform from which to shout REALLY REALLY LOUDLY about the things they think are important.