Birthday Celebrations at the Arcola

Celebrating its fifth birthday, the Arcola is commissioning Factory Girls by Frank McGuiness. Maureen McManus talks to Mehmet Ergen, Artistic Director at Arcola

To mark its fifth anniversary, Arcola theatre is going back to it’s earlier incarnation as a shirt factory, with the play written by Frank McGuiness, called Factory Girls. Mehmet Ergen, the artistic force behind the setting up of the Arcola, said, “I chose Factory Girls especially. It’s set in a shirt factory, in Ireland. In this district there are a lot of factories and they are in trouble, a lot are closing. We converted this space from an old factory and it’s nice to convert it back again.”

The design for the first half of Factory Girls is amazing, quite literally it feels like walking into a shirt factory. The fastidious work of the designer, Lizzie Clachan really pays off, and most of the delight of the first half of this play, about labour agitation in an Irish textile factory when times get hard, comes from the sheer believability of the setting. The second half of Factory Girls, the audience walks back into seemingly a different theatre. This is made possible by the size of the space. In this case, it is the weaker act of the play, where the writer seems to get bogged down in a series of confrontations, and I found it hard to keep hold of the central drama, despite knowing the milieu from which the work comes. This is one of McGuinness’ earlier plays, and though it does take the audience into the world of the factory girls, it doesn’t seem to clarify what is really at stake for these women. The loss of a job in an economy which is blighted with unemployment of 20-30 per cent, and the knowledge that losing a job more than likely means emigration, don’t quite lift off in the production. However the storming performances of all five actresses grab attention and hold it, even when we are not clear on the sub-textual conflicts.

The genius of choosing the right play seems to come naturally to Mehmet Ergen, a native of Istanbul, who came to England at the age of 22. This same genius seems to be behind his unmatched achievement of setting up not one, but two successful fringe venues from scratch, and seeing them go on to be lauded for the power and quality of their work. He was a founder member of the Southwark Playhouse, before opening the Arcola five years ago. He claims the secret of his success is mixing the audiences. He says, “We have the most mixed audiences in the country. It’s amazing, we get young and old, black and white, the poor and the rich.” He clarifies, “Diverse programming has been our motto, we surprise people all the time; we do a German season, and we get an European audience, then we get a Jewish audience, a Nigerian audience, and a Turkish audience. It changes and we also vary the talents as well, we get very high profile directors, very high profile companies together with first time directors who come with fantastic new plays.”

Ergen remains the artistic director, and his stamp stays on the choice of work being programmed. He explains his formula for success, “One quarter popular pieces, Shakespeare, Goldoni, and musicals for example. Another quarter of neglected areas of the literature, like the German season. Then one quarter will be new writing, British premiers by those who write in English. And the last quarter I leave for people to come up with things I haven’t thought of before, like the recent Carver stories, and maybe an adaptation of a novel, or something that challenges the current forms.”

I question Ergens’ perseverance in the face of ongoing financial adversity, and he cheerfully says, “I find it easy, I don’t know what it is, it’s a habit with me when I see a rundown building, I just imagine the windows painted black and as long as people come it’s fine. If people know there is a room somewhere in their neighbourhood where they can go in and be in the French Revolution they will go.”

This week there is a room in east London, playing as a shirt factory in Ireland, while there is a real shirt factory upstairs in the same building, in danger of being closed down. Ergen said, “The Factory Girls is here to show we are on the side of the workers in the factory upstairs, in the hope that it will keep the shirt factory open.”

Factory Girls
by Frank McGuinness
Director Raz Shaw
Designer Lizzie Clachan
Lighting David Holmes
Composer Alex Silverman
Cast
Una Kate Binchy
Rohan Ruairi Conaghan
Vera Catherine Cusack
Bonner Paul Lloyd
Ellen Maggie McCarthy
Rebecca Aislinn Mangan
Rosemary Jane Murphy

Until 18 February
Starting time
8pm Mon-Fri & 3pm Sat Mat
Arcola Theatre
27 Arcola Street
London, E8 2DJ
www.arcolatheatre.com