PERFORMING THE BENEFIT

 

 

On the4th and 5th  March 2025 I performed The Benefit at the Alma Tavern Theatre in Clifton, Bristol.  I was pleased I accomplished this, not least by delivering a script without fluffing anything for about  1 hour 15 minutes. 

The question is did my audiences get their money’s worth?  I sincerely hope so.  Was the whole story of my overcoat meaningful in a way that individual extracts at various scratch nights and fundraisers seemed to be?  Feedback from the Bristol Old Vic Artists’ Forum Scratch Night last July was encouraging, eg:-

A brilliantly written one person play exploring people and place, spun together by the journey of a coat. The characterisations of Michael and the young woman are important to punctuate the narrative so more of that! Loved the rhythm of the writing, brilliantly performed. I want to see it in production.

The journey of a coat, from place to place, owner to owner and the encounters.  I loved Jo’s descriptions, past & present details.  Hooked all the way. The romantic in me wants Micheal and the young girl to meet again….and the coat stays with him… Loved it.

Then feedback from the Alma Theatre performance of The Benefit

I enjoyed a captivating evening watching the solo show of The Benefit.  The star of the play is a bespoke black overcoat and the content is the various situations and personas that inhabit said coat.  The stories are expertly written and told by Jo Cross, occasionally accompanied by a violin. I was transported to different places, times and situations and the play will stay with me for a long time.

And this comment mattered:-

The audience were really captivated. The writing was so well crafted as was Jo’s performance. Well done and thank you.

 

Thank heavens the audience were captivated (considering they paid £12 a ticket and  the Alma Theatre was a quite cramped, stuffy venue!  Thankfully they have recently  installed air conditioning).

 It was great working with Anneka Sutcliffe, the violinist who accompanied me.  My inexperience in identifying the right music showed, but Anneka’s choice of work by Kreisler and  Ravel did the trick as did her improvisations around  tense passages in the text.   The value of Anneka’s presence was invaluable; I didn’t feel alone and she was a very calming influence in the run up to each performance.  Also I was so grateful for the kindness of the Alma Tavern Theatre staff: Oli the artistic director and Calin who stepped in lighting the show.  

 

What next for The Benefit?  Two possibilities present themselves:-

I could research and tap into non-European traditions in tailoring and garment construction, drawing on the origin of sartoriality and how it plays out physically and emotionally in other cultures.

Develop the stories of the two poets: Marlon the wartime flaneuse following in the footsteps of Baudelaire in her exquisitely tailored suit,  channelling the movie star, Marlene Dietrich.   Then there’s  Marlene, the 1980’s poet up for poetry slams in her second-hand tonic suit.   

LA LOTTA

 

December 2024 I was lucky to support new writing from Viola Bruni, a Bristol based  theatre maker, dancer and circus arts specialist. This took the form of a Scratch Theatre performance of some scenes from  a play she is  working on:  “La Lotta” ( meaning the Fight or Struggle). 

(Myself and Constantine Caruso.  Image: Nick Vidal-Hall)

Viola is lucky to have two Mums, Rosa and Nina.   La Lotta tells the story of their  fight for women’s and workers’ rights in Italy during the 1980’s and their subsequent incarceration for supporting a militant left wing organization.  It was a privilege to play Nina and realise, through Viola’s writing,  how much Nina’s  and Rosa’s  activism in Italy in those days reflected our political struggles here in Britain. 

Firstly Nina and Rosa, like  myself,  felt the need to escape the repressive conventions of the communities we grew up in:  family expectations of a simple job and inevitable marriage and community traditions based on religion and respectability. Effectively small town narrow mindedness! 

I think our struggles and desire for change were often the same, particularly in term of women’s and workers rights and freedoms.   As a drama teacher and trade union member in East London we all supported the Miners’ Strike in 1984 and made up food parcels to send to their families.  We were strong on anti-racism campaigns and we stewarded the ‘Rock Against Racism’ Concert in April 1978 in nearby Victoria Park organised by the Anti-Nazi League.  This did not put mine or my colleagues in direct danger from the authorities as Nina and Rosa found themselves. But what we became aware of was the extent that the security services, known as MI5 in the U.K.,  spied on, phone tapped and photographed anyone on the political left  or supportive of Irish Nationalism.    The police, particularly the Special Patrol Group, were known for their violence towards black and South Asian communities, gay and lesbian communities, workers on strike and anti-racist activists. 

Exploring Viola’s work on La Lotta has given me insights into the Italian experience of protest and resistance at that time.   We all knew about civil rights in the 1960’s in the U.S.A.and the 1968 student protests in France but the activism in other European countries was not well reported unless bombs were involved.  We all knew and loved the work of playwright Dario Fo but that was about it within my arts-orientated community. 

In my play “Age Queer”  (2021)  I foregrounded the political activism of my two protagonists, Alan and Norma in the 1980’s and how this is institutionally suppressed in later life.  So it has been a real pleasure to engage with Viola’s work focussing on the desire for freedom and respect people of my generation fought for.      

 

ACTIVISM ON AGEING

 Recently I had cause to pull together my work on Ageing as opposed to other projects, so I reproduce this below.  

My script for 'The Benefit' is a welcome break from this  and am glad to report that an extract was well received at a Bristol Old Vic Scratch Night last month.  

MY WORK AND ACTIVISM ON AGEING AND THE LIFECOURSE

 I began my blog in 2019:  New Wave Ageing: (Ageing, Cultural Diversity and the Performing Arts).  An early post sums up where I stand:-

As a Londoner, but resident in Bristol for the last 11 years, I have an inherent and professional interest in this city’s  multicultural arts communities and environments.   Even if I had not taught drama in Hackney for many years, and performed in various, curious settings, these would always be my comfort zones.  Some 15 years ago I took a not unrelated shift towards sociology, ultimately gaining a PhD with the University of Bristol.  So I have grown older myself sheltering under these complimentary umbrellas.  My desire now is to connect with individuals and organizations, creative and otherwise,  who want to see positive changes, for now and for future generations, in the way we experience our  later lives.  Consistent with public policy in Bristol, these are to:-

 

·       Promote the cultural diversity of older men and women through the performing arts and beyond. 

 

·       Challenge traditional representations of later life and the ageism they perpetuate.

 

·       Re-present later life through the lens of authenticity and autonomy.

 

Further  Age-Relevant Professional Activity:-

2010 Advisor on Qualia Theatre’s production at Bristol Old Vic Theatre In Her Shoes All about older women and their clothing.

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/activities/advisor-on-production-in-her-shoes-performed-at-the-bristol-old-v Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

2012  Older and….? A collaboration with photographer Deborah Weinreb. Older and... (dwphotoart.wixsite.com) An exhibition and workshop at Bristol’s MShed.  A project challenging perceptions of older people in society.  Funded by the ESRC.

2015 Awarded my PhD from the University of Bristol!  Truth to the Materiality of Later Life:  the Significance of the Aesthetic to the Support Needs of Older People.

2019        NEW WAVE AGEING[1]  (A discussion document, available on request)

        

 ‘If we are to successfully move to a new cultural environment – one that accepts age diversity and eschews age prejudice – we must consider a wide range of ways in which older adults can make a contribution.’ (Biggs, S. Kimberley, H. Carr, S. 2015:7) [3]

I was  grateful to those who took it seriously, eg. Acta Theatre, Diverse Artists Network, Theatre Bristol and Sarah Smith (former Board Chair of Tobacco Factory Theatre). 

2019:  Ageing and Identity Workshop (I am not who you think I am) at Bristol’s Trinity Centre. (described on my blog) Ageing, Cultural Diversity and the Performing Arts: 2019 (newwaveageing.com)

2019: I was a Theatre Bristol Agent at ‘Age Against the Machine Festival of Creativity in Ageing’ London Borough of Lewisham. About Age Against the Machine | Age Against the Machine

2021 – 2: My play script Age Queer afforded dramaturgical support by Theatre West under their Arts Council funded Zooming Ahead Scheme for Women Writers.  This followed up by a Zoom performance and a rehearsed reading at Bristol’s Trinity Centre.

2022:  Presented at a Theatre Bristol Assembly: Emergent at any Age.  My presentation entitled ‘Lifecourse, Legacy and Multigenerational Approaches to the Arts’ (powerpoint available on request).

2022: Extracts from Age Queer performed in the Galleries Broadmead Shopping Centre as part of the Artivist in a Box / Altered Festival highlighting the strong relationship between local artivists and political activism. (described in my blog).  I wrote on a jacket to underscore this.

 

 

---

[1] New Wave definition : : 1. a fashion in something, such as art, music, cinema, or politics, that is intentionally different from traditional ideas in that subject or activity: 2. people who are doing activities in a new and different way: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/new-wave

f art on people’s lives.

[3] Carr. A., Bigg, S. Kimberley, H.  (2015) Ageing, Diversity and the Meaning(s) of Later Life.  Cultural, Social and Historical Models to Age By in Readings in Law and Social Justice V11/2015 Issue pp 7 - 60

THE BENEFIT an extract

 The Benefit is a show intended for solo performance this Autumn.  It is a mix of narrative, verse and dialogue.  The protagonist is a bespoke, black men's overcoat travelling from back to back - or hand to hand - across time and space.    

I'm introducing here one of the characters who 'owns' the overcoat for a short period of time.  Marlon describes herself as a 'flaneur -or 'flaneuse - take your pick'.  She cruises the streets of her war-torn city in the spirit of the great French poet Baudelaire seeking out subjects for the poetry she writes.  She  dresses impeccably in a man's lounge suit channelling the style of the German actress Marlene Dietrich. 

She is arrested by an army officer and interrogated.  She charms him and wins our Overcoat from him in an arm wrestling contest.  She is freed, but on condition that she does a bit of spying for him 'out the back' of a cafe where anarchists supposedly meet.  Marlon, of course,  has no intention of doing this and sets off to do a bit of flaneuring around the city.

 Now Marlon has  absolutely no intention of going out the back or in the front or even round the side of any premises and having missed her daily flaneur round the city, she sets out to see what or whom catches her eye.  But feeling in need of a stiff drink after her interrogation she finds a seat on the terrace of a café.  Sure the tables are a little charred and half the bar is missing but it’s business as usual.  As she sips a large brandy, she notices  a girl picking her way like an angry pigeon through snow sludge and chunks of masonry.  She is wearing a top dollar  fox fur coat but it doesn’t sit well with her,  this girl being  in no fit state to benefit from either its warmth or elegance. Yes, a very angry pigeon, Marlon thinks when she notices that the fur on one sleeve is horribly burnt, burnt black. A poem takes shape in her mind.  Damaged Stock

she’ll call it.

A red fox fur I saw the other week

Draped on a mannequin with a

Sharp jaw and sharper carmine lips

Dead animals the both of them

On display in the window of a department store

Screaming ‘Look at me’

For the respectable amongst us to

Conspicuously consume,

To feed our greed for privilege,

To nourish an illusion of some certainty

In our oh so fractured lives.

 

Fur and skin,

The skin of the fur stretched

Stretched tight, nailed,

Stretched and nailed down,

 Alive, wasn’t it?  Once.

Yet the red fox fur moves,

And  lives in the mind of   

Our angry little pigeon,

Sharp, hungry eyes and sharper carmine lips

Short-changed, short sighted

Aware she’s drawn the short straw

When she should have  won the prize.

Look at her, trying for all she’s worth,

To hide her disfigurement

That charred black sleeve,

That dead red fox fur

Who’s  more damaged now?

The fur coat or the wearer?

A soldier at a café table laughs

And throws a bottle at the angry little pigeon.  

Now Marlon, sensing she  might get a bottle thrown in her direction, and conscious of looking like a slag heap in our overcoat,   decides to move on.  Plus she’s dying for a pee and she’s not running the gauntlet of what this café has to offer.  She knows just the place. 

FIVE YEARS OF THIS BLOG!  

My blog has served me more as an aide memoire or diary than an interactive blog inviting comment and discussion.  Over the last year I've explored the option of having a website or self-publishing some of the essays I've written, particularly those composed during Lockdown. Unfortunately the cost of living blows these options out of the water. 

Firstly technical help is imminent  in tidying up this blog so titles of posts are evident on the home page. Such as my more detailed CV accessible in the April 2023 post below.  

Secondly help at changing the domain name. I have done so much work on later life academically, in my writing (Age Queer)  and through  performance  (Artivist in a Box). I have so many other directions I want to go in. 

The last year has seen me:-

 In two  supporting artist roles in local filming via Phoenix Casting of the blink and you'll miss me kind,  Also playing a dying woman in a University of Bristol student film, Evenescent Nexus, for which the highly professional young film makers raised the money to pay the cast.  

Spending much time on immensely rewarding trustee duties for Travelling Light Theatre. 

Being an Open Mic impresario (?) for fundraisers at Cafe 5 (Bristol Refugee Rights) and at the Dark Horse (Travelling Light's Big Give Challenge). 

Enjoying improv workshops at the amazing Wardrobe Theatre

Seeing great theatre here in Bristol.  

And finally researching and writing my  script for The Benefit. The first draft has been completed and excerpts have been performed at the above Open Mic events.  

 

JO CROSS PROFILE

 

MORE DETAILS ABOUT MY CURRENT WORK AND A FULL C.V.

JO CROSS   e.mail:  jecross19 [at] yahoo.co.uk  mob.: 079756565473

 

I am a Bristol based actor, writer, activist,  para-academic and drama workshop facilitator. I identify as she/her and am proud of my east London background.

AN ACTOR:  Theatre Training (Guildhall School of Music and Drama)  followed by Theatre in Education training at City of Birmingham College of Education. I spent some twenty years teaching in East London (South Hackney and Kingsland Schools). I continued to develop my  theatre skills at Chat’s Palace Community Theatre  in Hackney.

2006 – 1017 I worked as a freelance education facilitator working for Bristol City’s Museums, Galleries and Archives, also developing  actor/character led schools’ workshops at the Red Lodge, Blaise Castle and MShed.

2021-22 I  was employed as an actor on “The Creative Histories of Witchcraft”, a collaboration between Will Pooley of Bristol University’s History Department, playwright Poppy Corbett and poet, Anna Kisby Compton.

WHAT I CAN DO:  Develop and deliver bespoke drama workshops across the age  range  for collaborative/ developmental purposes.   Below part of a drama workshop I delivered at Trinity Centre Bristol, exploring ageing and identity:-

                   

Play the part of an older woman -  so long as it’s not a stereotype!   

With Rebecca Braccialarghe in “How Many Things Can You Think About” 2021 Café 5, Easton.

 

A WRITER:  2021 saw me awarded support from Theatre West for my script “Age Queer” under their Arts Council funded, Zooming Ahead scheme for Women Writers.  A Zoom performance was followed up by a live performance at  Bristol’s Trinity Centre last year.

                                            

Feedback:-

From Heather Lister   : That was wonderfully moving, funny and inspiring (from the P.O.V. of someone 70ish!!) I enjoyed all the performances; it is beautifully written, original and ingenious in many ways and I cannot think of any ways in which I think it could be improved. I'll look out for a future performance. Thank you!

From James Peries   : Very much enjoyed the detailed history of the early 80s for the characters; all felt very true.  Established very strongly the history, activism, and engagement that gets negated when older (in others' eyes). 'Elders' recruiter being a funeral director in his day job a good twist!  Decline of Norma at the end was strongly written and acted.  Thank you. 

From Jean Cooper Moran   : Jo's 'Age Queer' play was a superb idea, with realistic and robust themes, humour and a touching friendship between these chippy characters. The actors all jumped into character immediately; the PO's monologue at the beginning was gripping. The dramatic sequencing and dialogue were true to life and held our interest throughout.  Bobby Sands was a tragic theme, and foreshadowed Nora's own last act as a 'refusenik' - great phrase.  I accepted the use of sadism in the earlier scenes pointed up the internal conflicts of being gay, and the terrors and rewards of joining that community. My brother would have identified with Alan.  Brian the happy lanyard was a well acted and telling character.  God save us from the 'home' at the end of life...

 

2021 I wrote (within three weeks!)  “How Many Things Can You Think About (When You’re Lying Under an Immigration Removal Van)” for Odd Lot Theatre, this performed as a fundraiser for Bristol Refugee Rights at Café 5, Easton.

Current project.  A show for solo performance, working title The Benefit.

Elevator Pitch:   In this gothic  satire on human frailty – and the art of tailoring - a  black gentleman’s  overcoat passes through a turbulent, 20^th century, European  city attracting a random  mix  of owners along the way.  Who gets to feel the benefit of this most universal of garments and who’s left out in the cold? And what purpose does our coat serve when it surfaces in the 21^st century?

  

WHAT I CAN DO:   Develop script for a variety of media.  Serve as ‘writer in the room’ on projects as they develop. 

 

AN ACTIVIST AND PARA-ACADEMIC

I have kept this simple blog going for the last, few years.  A progression from my doctorate and building on my concern for the subordination of later life in U.K. society, my experience of spending most of my life in multicultural Hackney where I raised my dual heritage family and myself being a ‘child of the 60s’ appalled at the monocultural assumptions about older people.

  

                                                                                                                        

  From my ‘Artivist in a Box’ performance in Broadmead Galleries 2022.

My doctorate was in Applied Aesthetics:  how cultural diversity can best be understood through our everyday, aesthetic lives; the sensuality of the  very stuff that defines who we are, this being particularly important as we grow older.    

WHAT I CAN DO Advise on or  review  representational practices, whatever the media, which include older people.

Devise and deliver drama / storytelling workshops using artefacts of any type for the purpose of exploring their aesthetic worth and  significance to a project.  

OTHER ACTIVITY –

I keep updating and expanding on my skills base attending Meisner and improvisation workshops, script writing workshops (recently with Matt Grinter) community theatre workshops with Acta under their Elevate scheme and recently workshops organised by Bristol Old Vic’s Ferment team.   

 I have served as  the lead on Bristol City Council’s  DIY Artists' Network Equality and Inclusion sub-group, as a Theatre Bristol agent  and am a trustee of Travelling Light Theatre.  I am a member of the actors’ union Equity,  Diverse Artists’ Network and Bristol Old Vic’s Artists’ Forum. 

 

MOVING ON

 

2022 has been good year for watching amazing theatre, particularly at Bristol Old Vic.   Also  keeping my script Age Queer ticking over around my networks, including the Old Vic where it reached the second round of the Ferment (new work) commissioning process for further development. Glad I got that far!  At the time of writing this I plan to submit Age Queer for two imminent competitions prompting me to update/enhance it even more.

Thinking of changing titles, I’ll be moving  away from Ageing and Ageism to develop  new work throughout 2023.  Throughout the last few months of 2022 I started work on two new projects:  Euro Gothic – this an expansion of my early iterations of The Overcoat. I performed some of this at a fundraiser we held in December for Travelling Light Theatre / Big Give Challenge and will be considering its potential as  a solo  show.

Second up is Holiday Haunts for which I have been doing extensive research.  My source material is a battered, foxed copy of Great Western Railway’s Holiday Haunts Guide 1923.  I’m hoping to pitch  this historical artefact as a springboard for a community performing/applied arts project soonest. 

This blog  has served as deposit box for writing or an aide memoire rather than an interactive site.  The domain is just about to renew so I will stick with it for the time being.   I'm pleased with  some of the blogs I've written, particularly those I wrote at the outset and during Lockdown and plan to condense them.  Missing is a topic list and one of my things to do is to get help with the tech to sort it.   

Big love, big hugs.