When I first set out to create a dramatic Resound Forum Theatre scenario focused on domestic violence I had a very generalised knowledge of the subject.
It is difficult to see the through the damaging smokescreen of myths which hide the fact that two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner. And, according to Home Office statistics published early in 2010, more than 1 million female victims of domestic abuse in England and Wales.
The Forum Theatre project was commissioned by Estuary Housing Association for their staff conference. Identifying and supporting women under the threat of domestic violence is one the more challenging aspects of the housing support services which Estuary provides for the residents living in the 3,400 properties it manages.
The original storyline was devised in collaboration with Estuary and expert insights into the subject came from invaluable input from their Housing and Community Development teams.
The main character was a single mother living on a council estate who becomes involved with a construction site worker she met in a bar.
There was gratifying high praise for everyone involved from Linda Hollingworth, Director of Human Resources: “The work undertaken by Resound for its Forum Theatre sessions focused on our Equality and Diversity agenda and the staff conference was hugely popular. It has been very effective in putting across the message on both Equality and Diversity and the work of the Housing Officers related to the issue of domestic violence. Working together with Resound we have provided some very effective development for our staff.”
The domestic violence scenario was an accurate – but far from comprehensive – picture of the way it permeates all layers of society. Refuge the organisation which runs a network of safe houses providing emergency accommodation for women and children, points out; “You only have to think of the celebrities we hear about in the papers to realise that money cannot protect you from domestic violence. Men who abuse women are as likely to be lawyers, accountants and judges as they are milkmen, cleaners or unemployed.”
So, when West Essex Community Health Services asked for a Forum Theatre production for a conference specifically on domestic abuse, it gave me the chance to portray the problem from a contrasting perspective. This time the client wanted the focus on middle class characters living in an affluent setting.
The new storyline reveals the abuse going on in the partnership of a couple living in a large house in an expensive area – a combination of a well educated stay-at-home wife and her husband, an established City Banker.
It was a challenge to sympathetically show why an educated woman would remain in an abusive relationship but at the end of the scene there was stunned silence from the audience. It didn’t last long as people enthusiastically discussed the implications of what they had just seen and the feedback demonstrated how successful the approach had been in raising awareness and empathy.
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