Oldal 12 [12]
FOREWORD
where drama courses were springing up all over the place, and the ‘chance’
part was that they were within commuting distance from each other. In fact
they both lived in the same city.
In time Bolton forged his own separate path and developed a key part of
his approach which was to build into the Living Ihrough experience a dual
experiencing of the fictional and the actual which he called the metaxis
effect. Ádám Bethlenfalvy gives a sharp analysis of all this interweaving in
the history of drama in education (DiE). He also investigates and explores
the separate but related development of that other great drama teacher,
Cecily O’Neill.
Other teachers took aspect of the work of Heathcote and Bolton and offered
their own approach to classroom drama. A key practitioner here is Jonathan
Neelands. He took the word convention from Heathcote and developed it in his
own way into a whole method of drama teaching (see for example Structuring
Drama Work by Neelands and Goode’). Adam Bethlenfalvy explains this was
his own starting point in drama teaching in Hungary and he soon began to
realise its limitations and again he usefully explores this as part of his own
journey in drama teaching.
The work of Heathcote and Bolton, focusing as it does on the personal
experiences of the pupils in the drama, opening a window onto their lives
and the values they held, was not universally applauded. Voices were raised in
criticism. Hornbrook’ was particularly forceful in condemning the approaches
of Heathcote and Bolton. He saw them as devaluing the role of theatre as
an art form in children’s education. Heathcote had invented teacher in role
and joined in the drama and some saw this as a danger of too much teacher
influence over the child’s creativity. There was a danger that the teacher would
get all the best parts in the drama. Ädäm Bethlenfalvy does not shy away
from these criticisms but usefully examines six of them in detail.
LIVING THROUGH DRAMA AND THE PLAYWRIGHT EDWARD BOND
There has always been discussion about the relationship of drama in
education to theatre. In its early post-World War II phase it was more closely
related to child play particularly under Slade’s influence. Bolton’ finds
connections between Stanislavski and Peter Slade and Brian Way. Heathcote®
5 Jonothan Neelands and Tony Goode: Structuring Drama Work (2! edn), Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
6 David Hornbrook: Education and Dramatic Art, Oxford, Blackwell, 1989.
7 Gavin Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, Stoke on Trent, Trentham, 1998, 126--150.
8 Alistair Muir: New Beginnings: Knowledge and form in the drama of Bertolt Brecht and
Dorothy Heathcote, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 1996.
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