Telling stories of military partners
Using theatre to explore ‘military conflict’ as something that happens in the battlefield and at home.
We know about the soldiers. Rarely do we hear the stories of partners at home.
In recent years, military theatre projects such as the Royal British Legion’s award winning The Two Worlds of Charlie F, Lola Arias’ Minefield, and Jonathan Lewis’ Soldier On have captured the public’s imagination, and have become a popular way of communicating ‘war stories’ to civilian audiences. These plays have often focused on what it is like to go away and come back from overseas wars and periods of deployments. Rarely do we hear the stories of their partners at home.
These are the stories that we want to tell.
We used theatre to explore ‘military conflict’ not only as something that happens in far away battlefield sites, but as something that continues to play out at home.
We wanted to know… How does military participation affect families and intimate relationships? What are the different shapes that ‘conflict’ can take in the context of military families/relationships? What are the stories that spouses, partners, and ex partners of military personnel would like to tell about their own lives and experiences? How can theatre help military partners to tell their stories?
The project seeks to shape public debate on the spaces and consequences of 'war' through a co-produced theatre performance, ‘Magnolia Walls’, and to help shape Ministry of Defence provision of support for military families.
Our project, ‘Conflict, Intimacy and Military Wives: A Lively Geopolitics’ is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The project team consists of a research team based at Newcastle University working in collaboration with Workie Ticket Theatre Company, a North-East based feminist theatre organisation. It has full ethical approval of Newcastle University HaSS Faculty Research Ethics Committee.