A Spell in the Army and The House that Jack Built: 2 play scripts and 8 Invocations

The House That Jack Built written by Mike Kenny was the first collaboration between Mike and Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah in 1987; the first of twelve new commissions over thirty years. The play came out of a devising process where we delved into our own family histories to find that we did not have to go that far back before questions arose to which we did not have the answers. There were two stories competing for our attention, one was about a cousin who had disappeared and was still out there somewhere and the other story was the revelation at the funeral that the deceased husband/father had had two families. We went for the second story and we called the man with two families, Jack and we set it at his funeral.

Our audience were teenagers in youth centres and schools, so keeping them in mind while we worked on the play, we focused on the question “when do you know if you’re a grown up?” providing the frame through which to view this family saga. It is a question that will always be relevant and changes depending on historical and societal contexts. Western cultures have always struggled with creating clear sign posts for young people to feel like they have arrived in adulthood, dismissing “rites of passage” rituals in older indigenous cultures as primitive. So what do they come up with instead in 2024? National Service?