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THE Roots OF LIVING THROUGH DRAMA — HEATHCOTE AND MAN IN A MESS
through the fictional situation. Heathcote says in the film that it will take
some time for the boys to realise and say to themselves ‘that was me talking’.*’
The relationship of fiction and reality, the role and the participant is a crucial
element in creating a productive crisis. The situation here clearly brings into
play the tension between the fictional crisis — prisoners of a war camp — and
the real situation of the participants — having to stay at an approved school.
O’Toole calls this metaxis, the tension created by the interaction “between
the fictional context and the real context".
A third example is based on Bolton’s account of a Heathcote drama lesson
from the ‘60s. The Death of the President was also filmed in an approved
school and the participants here chose to shoot the president, but their decision
was that one person should shoot. Bolton refers to the original lesson, not only
what can be seen of it in the film. The gang listen to the radio as their associate
shoots the president, who is caught and the drama continues in the prison.
Bolton describes” the extreme tension created by playing the moments where
the consequences of their joint decision to shoot the president goes wrong,
generating questions of personal responsibility. One such moment is listening
to the live broadcast on the radio, in which space is created for participants to
realise what the implications of their plans are. A dialogue between the prison
guard — Heathcote in role — and the shooter is also a moment which opens
space for understanding the consequence of the action, not by moralising
about it, but by talking about the prisoner’s breakfast. Bolton also analyses
how Heathcote wins back the group after they reach a ‘low point’?! The next
day she starts by creating the prison cells and the sound of someone mopping
the prison floor. This game re-engaged the participants, and Bolton argues
that it is the connection between the drama and their lives that re-energised
the boys’ participation in the fiction.”
These examples show that Heathcote relied on the urgency of the crisis
for the fictional roles and the problem’s connection to the participants’
real lives in her LTD. Comparing Man in a Mess with the Mantle of
the Expert approach developed by Heathcote in the late seventies, we see
that the distance from the crisis grows. David Allen” cites an example from
# At 15:30 in the film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKiUO99qrw, (accessed 26 April
2020).
O’Toole: Process of Drama, 30.
Gavin Bolton: Dorothy Heathcote’s story: biography of a remarkable drama teacher, Stoke on
Trent, Trentham Books, 2003.
99 Ibid., 74.
9 Ibid., 75.
72 Ibid.
% David Allen: Citizens and Stewards: Dorothy Heathcote’s ‘Mantle of the Expert’ System,
The Journal for Drama in Education, 28(2), 2012, 41-50.
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