You were known for being a performer?
When I was much younger, around the time my first son was born, I was interested in Theatre and I did attend the University of Ulster. I completed a two year Community Drama course. James King was overseeing that. He knew I was a single parent and really supported me during that time.
There was a year-long festival of arts and culture in the nineties called “Impact 92”, and were bursaries available to attend a workshop with Augusto Boal who founded The Theatre of the Oppressed. He was coming to Derry to do a ten day workshop. Everyone wanted to go to that workshop and James King encouraged me to apply.
There was also South African writer, playwright and director, Barney Simon, who had set up The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. James advised me to apply for Barney’s workshop as well. I ended up getting both bursaries.
What do you decide to do?
The Boal workshop was incredible and I definitely got a lot out of that. It was pretty incredible to be in the same room as him for that length of time. But it was Barney Simon who had the most profound impact on me. He had Black and White actors on stage in Johannesburg before they were allowed to sit together in the Theatre.
His method was to get people together and get them to tell their story, get them improvising and then they would transcribe the stories. That was how he was developing work in such a conflicted environment. That just resonated with me.
Coming out of that experience, I went into a Women’s Refuge and got the women to tell their stories. I put four narratives together, wrote a play about Domestic Violence, and that was supported by the Playhouse in Derry.
I then wrote another play which went to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and after that the Spoken Word scene which was growing and evolving. That was around the late 90’s and given I was always writing poetry anyway, that was a natural evolution to go there.
Writing plays and performance poetry was where I expressed myself creatively.
To see more of Pamela Brown’s work go to the following link – www.pamelamarybrown.com/the-transformative-way/
