TIM MARRIOTT
"I founded Smokescreen Productions in 2017. Having spent twenty years as an actor in theatre and TV followed by eighteen years in teaching, I wanted to combine both theatrical and educational experience into creating drama that entertains but also enlightens, working with national charities to bring contemporary issues to life in cinematic style, supporting dynamic theatrical performance with multimedia techniques.
Theatre has always been a unique forum to ask questions of society. Drama was born in Ancient Greece, where annual festivals offered an opportunity for the people to hold up a mirror to their rulers, where plays warned of human frailty, of hubris, of placing the law of man above the laws of nature. By placing themes and issues within a different context theatre can ask audiences to re-examine what they thought and felt to be true, to ask questions of ourselves and the world around us. By seeing something of ourselves reflected on stage we identify with and follow the drama. For example, in Mengele we were encouraged by the Holocaust Educational Trust not to paint the man simply as a monster, for then he is too easy to dismiss as an 'evil' man, but to access the humanity in him, present him as a man like many others before revealing the true horror of what he did. This way we remind ourselves, as Auschwitz survivor Lydia Tischler put it, of the "potential for destructiveness in all of us", and warn against buying into hatred and bigotry.
I grew up watching plays by Pinter, Beckett and Stoppard, and seeing Shakespeare interpreted by great directors such as Peter Brook, the West End proudly showcasing great writing, directing and acting, intellectually challenging and innovative. This is what inspired me to work in theatre, not the trivia and tourist attractions that dominate commercial work now.
I think and hope that there is still an audience out there that likes to dig a bit deeper, to question, that is willing to be stimulated and provoked, that doesn't necessarily want easy answers - as a great friend once said to me, "a good play is one where you feel the need to go for a long walk afterwards". Anything that encourages us to think for ourselves, to analyse, to look beyond the headlines and the rhetoric, has to be healthy, doesn't it?"
Tim Marriott