Pamela Nomvete as Faye. Photo - Helen Murray

‘Skeleton Crew’ by Dominique Morisseau (directed by Matthew Xia, at the Donmar Warehouse, London until 24 August) considers the impact of industrial decline on communities and individuals.

Faye: I don’t abide by no rules but necessity. I do what I do till I figure out another thing and do that.

The play is set in 2008, in the breakroom of one of the last small car plants operating in Detroit. There’s a microwave and a refrigerator, a tatty couch and crates of kitchen supplies. The heating has packed up and the bulletin board screams instructions.

‘FRIDGE EMPTIED EVERY FRIDAY’
‘NO GAMBLING ON THE PREMISES. DEZ, THIS MEANS YOU.’
‘YOU SEE YOUR MAMA HERE? NO? THEN CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF!’

Between shifts, the workers change shoes at their lockers, prepare themselves some food and coffee, and talk around the table. Dez (Branden Cook), a smart young hustler, charms his colleagues and plans for the future. Shanita (Racheal Ofori), diligent and thoughtful, does everything by the book. She loves her work.

Shanita: I feel like I’m building somethin’ important. Love the way the line needs me. Like if I step away for even a second and don’t ask somebody to mind my post, the whole operation has to stop. My touch…my special care…it matter. I’m building something that you can see come to life at the end. Got a motor in it and it’s gonna take somebody somewhere. Gonna maybe drive some important businessman to work. Gonna get some single mama to her son’s football practice. Gonna take a family on their first trip to Cedar Point. Gonna even maybe be somebody’s first time. Who knows? But I like knowing I had a hand in it.

And then there’s Faye (Pamela Nomvete), the formidable veteran with ‘a lifetime of dirt between her nails.’ She ignores the strictures against on-site smoking and gambling, and dishes out sarcasm and worldly wisdom.

Faye: Ya’ll youngins don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout how to fix up no car. Treat ‘em ‘bout as dumb as you treat women. Put a bunch of pretty jewelry on her – gold rims – trick out her exterior, and on the inside, she ain’t got nothin’ to run on. No care. No substance. Just put all your attention on the shit that don’t matter. That ain’t how to make her purr like you really want.

The autoworkers speculate about the reduced staffing on the lines and the recent spate of plant machinery thefts. They wonder whether the site is at risk of closure.

Dez: Rumors ‘bout shuttin’ down been circulating every year. Then it go away. That’s just how it is. Can’t worry ‘bout it. Cuz if it don’t happen you done worried for nothin’. And if it do happen, you done worried twice.

We learn how the threatened shutdown impacts each of the characters differently. Reggie (Tobi Bamtefa), the studious foreman with neat hair and a white buttoned-down shirt, has bought a house in a good area and settled his kids in a new school. Dez has been saving up to start his own repair shop, and desperately needs his wage and overtime. Faye is well aware that her retirement package will be significantly better if she can just make it to 30 years’ service.

Faye: Told you, don’t be listening to rumors. You inhale every rumor, you clog up your lungs. Die of asphyxiation of other people’s bullshit.

We also come to appreciate that the characters’ concerns are compounded by their own particular personal challenges. Faye has been sleeping overnight in the breakroom. Shanita is pregnant and periodically bursts in in tears. Dez keeps a gun in his locker.

Dez: Need me a good severance deal…if…shit goes down.
Faye: If ‘if’ was a spliff, we’d all be high.

**Racheal Ofori as Shanita.** Photo - Helen Murray

As the play proceeds, all these ingredients simmer and come to the boil. We are presented with a compelling case study in the dignity of labour; the social cohesion created by industrial jobs, and destroyed by wholesale layoffs; and the resourcefulness and grit of working people.

As a young Planner I was taught that one of the fundamental responsibilities of advertising was to keep the factories open; to keep the lines moving; to sustain jobs. It’s worth being reminded of that occasionally.

I was particularly taken with a speech made by Shanita after a tough commute to the factory.

Shanita: This whole city is under construction. That’s what I discovered on my way into work today. Traffic on the 75 was crazy. They done took everything down to one lane. And people don’t know how to merge. Cars backed up for miles cuz people don’t know how to merge. Don’t matter what freeway you take, it be the same selfish behaviour on all of ‘em. Everybody got somewhere to be and don’t wanna let you in. Even when you honk at ‘em. Even when you try to smile pretty and be polite with it. That shit used to work at one point. I could always squeeze into a lane with a smile. But not no more. Nobody wants to merge no more. We just gettin’ squished into smaller lanes while they make these promises to fix the freeways and don’t seem like they ever really get fixed. And at the end of the day, we just hate drivin’ with each other cuz ain’t enough space and assholes don’t wanna let you in. All I can think anymore is if we just merged, shit would flow so much better.

The world is more fragmented, individualistic and isolating than at any time in human history. And yet we are stronger together - in life generally, and in work specifically.

We need to remember how to merge.

'Gotta find me an angel
To fly away with me.
Gotta find me an angel
And set me free.
My heart is without a home,
I don't want to be alone.
I gotta find me an angel
In my life, in my life.
Too long have I loved,
So unattached within.
So much that I know
That I need somebody so.
So I'll just go on
Hoping that I find me someone.
Gotta find me an angel
In my life, in my life.
I know there must be someone
Somewhere for me.
Oh, I've lived too long
Without the love of someone.
And there's no misery
Like the misery
I feel in me.
Gotta find me an angel
In my life.’
Aretha Franklin, ‘Angel’ (C A Franklin / William N Sanders)

No. 479

Over the festive break I attended a very good production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan (The Donmar Warehouse until 18 February). Shaw’s plays are rarely performed nowadays. They are considered rather wordy, worthy and long. And Shaw himself, with his extravagant beard, prolific pamphleteering and occasionally eccentric opinions, can come across to modern sensibilities as a curious figure.

However, this Donmar production gives us pause for thought. Shaw’s story of a fifteenth century French peasant woman who leads the fight to liberate her country, considers themes that chime with us today. With her wide-eyed patriotism and direct engagement with god, Joan rejects expertise and elites, authority and hierarchy. She’s a populist or demagogue, if you like. And, inevitably, her simple faith and unwavering self-belief present quite a threat to the established order. An English Nobleman sums up the problem thus:

’If this cant of serving their country once takes hold of them, goodbye to the authority of their feudal lords, and goodbye to the authority of the Church.’

This prompted me to wonder how we, in the commercial communications sector, should respond to the events that gripped the wider world in 2016. Should we, like Joan, commit to more direct embrace of the tasks in hand; to unmediated encounters with Clients and consumers; to bypassing the established methods and modes? Should we design our own positive take on populism?

Saint Joan’s vivid contemporary relevance derives from Shaw’s active engagement with the world around him. His was a ‘theatre of ideas’ that demanded audience attention. He had a restless mind, an opinion about everything and a commitment to political and social change.

‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’

These words resonated with me because, I confess, I have always felt uncomfortable with conflict. I naturally tend towards compromise and consensus. So when ill feelings arise, I’m keen to build bridges, change the subject, leave the room. However, I have become increasingly aware that the moderate path bears modest fruit: change needs challenge; progress needs protest.

As we embark on a new year and consider our commercial resolutions, perhaps like Shaw we would do well to set aside our prudence. If we want to see transformational change in our business, we may need to stop making sense. We may need to be unreasonable.

‘Remould It Nearer To the Heart’s Desire’

In the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics you can see a stained glass window designed by George Bernard Shaw for the Fabian Society in 1910. Two men with hammers pound a globe that sits on an anvil. At the top of the window are the words: ‘Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.’

Over the years I interviewed a great many young Planners who were applying for positions in the Agency. As well as asking them about the advertising they worked on, the campaigns they admired, the brands that could do with some help, I would always invite them to consider the future of the industry: Where is the communications sector heading? How is Planning evolving? How can we remould our business ‘nearer to the heart’s desire’?

Some of the young candidates found discussion of such broad themes uncomfortable. They were daily employed in the execution of Agency and departmental strategies, not the setting of them. They didn’t have their hands on the corporate tiller, so how could they have an opinion on where the boat should sail?

I’m not sure I ever found this an acceptable excuse. We all find it easy to criticise and complain. But in the modern age we can only expect progress if we have a point of view on how to achieve it. With the new year upon us, whatever our place in the hierarchy, we should all ask ourselves: What would we do with a blank sheet of paper? How would we anticipate and enhance the evolving commercial landscape? How would we fashion the industry of the future?

‘What Do We Want? Gradual Change’

The Fabian Society, for whom Shaw designed his stained glass window, was a group of socialist intellectuals who believed in reform rather than revolution. Its commitment to gradualism and respect for the incumbent democratic processes may at first seem rather modest. It reminds me of the joke that circulated when I was at college about the Liberal Party on a protest march:

‘What do we want? Gradual change.
When do we want it? In due course.’

But delay can be decisive. The Fabian Society took its name from the Roman general Quintus Fabius who is often credited as the father of guerrilla warfare. His primary military tactic was the avoidance of direct confrontation with the enemy: he consistently delayed engaging Hannibal and his Carthaginian invasion force until the moment was right; and then he struck hard.

In the years since it was founded in 1884, the Fabian Society demonstrated that you can achieve a great deal through argument and influence; through patient pragmatism and change from within. The Fabians founded the London School of Economics in 1895 and they were a founding organisation of the Labour Party in 1900. Fabians were prominent in successive Labour Governments and Fabian thinking inspired much of the modern welfare state.

Perhaps the Fabian Society sets an example to the vast majority of people in the marketing and communications business that work within large, complex organisations. It often seems easier to imagine the industry of the future from scratch, rather than from existing structures. Being an enthusiast for change can be intimidating when you’re only a cog in the machine.

The Fabians encouraged their members to ‘educate, agitate, organise.’ Everyone can contribute to change through debate and advocacy; through designing trials and tests; through setting an example. Transforming a large incumbent business takes time and patience, diplomacy and cunning. But the rewards for success can be thrilling.

Happy new year!

No. 112

Skeleton Crew: ‘People Don’t Know How to Merge’

‘All Progress Depends on the Unreasonable Man’: George Bernard Shaw’s Lessons on Change