The Case of The Missing Bear Bones was a series of six drama and improvisation workshops for the local community in Rotherhithe, culminating in a bear-tastic showing for an invited audience. This project was a partnership between London Bubble, Box Office Bears and myself – Theatre Maker & Writer Angela Clerkin – in February-March 2024.
London Bubble – ‘Making theatre from stories that matter to our community, to create a fairer society’ – is a theatre company based in Southwark where a number of Bear and Dog bones were found at a time when bears had been extinct from England for 1,000 years. We were all excited at the prospect of drama workshops being based on a combination of local bear historical facts, using the BOB team’s archival and scientific research and methodology as a starting point, and my theatre-making experience. The hidden ingredient, always an unknown before starting, is the abundance of creativity, skills and ideas brought by whoever turns up to join the workshops.
The Preparation
I began preparing for the workshops by interviewing the BOB team about their involvement and expertise when exploring human-animal relationships in the early modern period. I was amazed and delighted to hear of the unusual interdisciplinary team, with job titles and skills that I had never heard of such as Zooarchaeologists and biomolecular archaeologists, who study bones and ancient DNA working alongside archivists and performance academics. Some of them work in a ‘clean laboratory’ testing 400 year-old bear and dog bones, while others travel the country to search various council records, libraries and legal archives for mentions of bears and bear-wards. This provides rich material for the workshops, detailed characters and unusual professions from the Elizabethan era and the modern day to explore. I was also delighted to discover that most of the BOB academics had teddy bears when they growing up including Mickey, Little Ted and Fred Bear.
Professor Hannah O’Regan is the Principal Investigator on the team, and it was hearing about her work that gave me the idea of creating a detective story involving missing bear bones. I asked Hannah did she ever feel like a detective trying to solve a mystery, she (light-heartedly) replied “Yeah, I’m like Poirot. I try and get the information out of each of them in order to determine what is the story.” I also asked Professor Gregor Larson, an evolutionary geneticist about this:
Q: Your title on the BOB project is Co-Investigator, and it puts me in mind of clues, suppositions and suspects. I wondered are there times when you have felt like you’re in an investigation?
A : Like an Investigation? That kind of describes my whole career. I think that’s what draws me into academia is that you’re always on the hunt for new clues and, you know, all the kind of clichés of any cop show or detective show that’s on television. You’ve got a question, you’ve got a hunch, you’ve got a perspective, and you’ve got a kind of an expectation, but you never know what you’re going to find. And often connections get made and new information comes to light and it drives the investigation in a whole new direction. That kind of discovery process happens all the time.
And from my perspective that is also how devised theatre shows are made – questions, hunches, perspectives, research, discoveries, changes of direction and something new comes into the light. And most importantly it is a collaborative and creative adventure.
The Workshops
Thirteen people attended the workshops, their ages were 26-84, they were a diverse group in terms of heritage, sexuality and gender, and neurodiversity, with a wide range of experience and a wealth of creativity. A few of them knew each other and many were new to me and/or London Bubble and/or each other. I facilitated the workshops and had an associate Cici Garcia, and support worker Lauren Spence, working with us. We began each session with 10 minutes of Tai Chi which bought everyone together, moving in unison, and focusing on spatial awareness. Each week I would introduce some research from the BOB team: photographs of ancient bear bones were used for crime scene improvisations; researched stories including young bear-wards in court for the bears fouling the Queens highway; and the old and modern characters with unusual jobs suggested by my BOB interviews made for inventive perspectives and hilarious situations.
Opinions about bear-baiting came through the characters and scenarios offered by the participants. It became clear that the group were very invested in the ethics of bear-baiting – we explored this in terms of playing saboteurs, and in addition they explored characters who were dependent on it for their living be they gamblers, bear-wards, publicans, butchers, or inn-keepers. One session included an hour-long improvisation about the 25 people in Nottingham on January 14th 1609 being prosecuted for baiting instead of being at prayer – the excuses people came up with were inventive to say the least!
We explored the pain and vulnerability of bears used for baiting as well as their fierceness and power. I thought about Shakespeare’s Macbeth who compares his own pain, just before he dies, to a bear at the stake. The further we explored, the stronger our connections to the bears, we became more emotional and informed in our storytelling.
On the fifth week I started to put some scenes together and come up with a provisional running order. Cici and I brainstormed bear-themed songs, sourced costumes and props (white coats, fur coats, bear ears, a burnt miniature house and a plethora of teddy bears) and explored lighting to create different atmospheres. The group all chose which teddy bear they wanted for the showing and gave them names from some of the famous celebrity bears who toured England in the 1500-1600s including Chester, Rose of Bedlam, Beefe of Ipswich, Mall Cutpurse, Kate of Kent, Ned of Canterbury, Mad Besse and Will Tookey.
The Showing
This was a high-octane, low-prep performance and was amazingly joyous, interesting, accomplished and moving – a lot was achieved in a short time through collaboration, kindness, humour and sheer audacity. We used improvisation, movement and devised text to tell the stories that had most captured our imaginations. The scenes we included were: The Scientist Laboratory, where the missing bear bones were discovered to have been liquidised, made into bone broth and imbibed by one of the biomolecular archaeologists; The Elizabethan Saboteurs Meeting, people meeting above The Bear Inn to discuss ending bear-baiting in their area; The Ethical Dilemma movement piece where everyone weighed up the potential gains and financial losses if bear-baiting was to stop; The Nantwich Fire & The Incredible Escaping Bears in which the town burned for 20 days, and the inhabitants tried to put out the fire while the bears escaped into the woods; The Expert which was a playful interview about a scientist, played by 3 people using one word at a time, writing a book about the Case of the Missing Bear Bones; and ended with The Teddy Bears Picnic which involved the cast, each holding a bear, sharing what made them angry like a bear, powerful like a bear and vulnerable like a bear. The showing lasted approximately 40 minutes and afterwards we all spoke with the audience about bears, teddy bears and picnics. See photographs above to get an idea of what each of the scenes looked like in the rehearsal room at London Bubble.
Reflections & Feedback
The feedback from participants, partners and audience has been incredibly touching and affirming. The Case of the Missing Bear Bones took on a life of its own, the shared experience of exploring animal-human stories from the sixteenth century, in addition to the lives and work of 21st-century scientists and academics, gave us rich material to work with.
“The participants engaged with the research by Box Office Bears and enjoyed local history informing their stories and discussions. They collaborated in a fun and artistic environment, challenging themselves and developing their skills as theatre makers. We also witnessed the impact this project had on the group’s social and emotional wellbeing; improved self-belief, improved self-awareness, improved communication and relational skills, increased motivation and resilience, demonstrating the need for more projects like this in the community.” — Marie Vickers, Artistic Director & Co-CEO London Bubble
“I knew very little about bear baiting before joining the cast, it was fascinating, and quite disturbing, to hear how popular it was at the time. I enjoyed improvising around historical events such as the Nantwich fire and giving excuses for not attending church and going to the bear baiting instead!” — Workshop Participant
“Great to see such a range of ages getting involved together, with never a reference to it. Thinking of a time gone by has always been interesting to me, people then were no different, only their experiences and influences” — Workshop Participant
“I have absolutely loved working on the case of the missing bear bones, and woke up this morning feeling a bit sad it’s all over. Absolutely loved working with everyone and thought it was just fantastic. Also my first time back doing any kind of improv or acting since before the pandemic – made me realise I need to do more!!!” — Workshop Participant
This was a surprising, nourishing and creative project from my perspective as a theatre maker and facilitator. My passions for bears, social history, theatre and working with the community all came together for this project and exceeded my expectations. Everyone involved from the participants, to the academics, to the partners, to the audience – bear hugs all round for contributing their grrrrreat generosity and furry imaginations. It was wonderful to briefly travel in the case of the missing bear bones.
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