Oldal 33 [33]
CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
the drama that has now begun. It is precise and real for the students, and they
know it is their work, their implicit ideas made explicit in a shape they can
sense”.'°* The phases Heathcote breaks down the fiction building into, helps
the participants to take responsibility step by step for the drama and begin to
own what they had imagined. They are not taking on pre-written characters,
but stepping into the roles and situations and reacting to them. The ‘making’
element of LTD is clearly in work here, in decision about the fictional world and
through participating in it, building it through actions within situations.
However, Bolton notes that Heathcote distrusted abandonmentto spontaneous
acting behaviour, “there are very few moments in her videoed lessons when
her pupils sustain their improvisational play-making beyond five minutes.
More typically, hardly a minute goes by without Heathcote intervening with
new input, checking, challenging, suggesting, protecting or high-lighting”.’”
True to her offer she is making a play with the group. Living through situations
is important in this play, but so is reflecting on the experience. I will now explore
self-spectatorship, an important element of Heathcote’s drama.
The Self-Spectator
Dorothy Heathcote coined the term self-spectator which Bolton defines as
“a conception that enactment leads to seeing oneself reflected in the fiction
one is making”.’°° He describes its benefits for the participants of drama
as “a double valence of being an audience to one’s own creation and being
an audience to oneself”.’”
An example of how Heathcote enhances this double valence can be found
in Wagner’s description of The Dreamer. After focusing on building belief
in the fiction, when the ‘crew’ is already on board the ship Heathcote asks
the participants to “note what you are thinking; out of what you’re thinking
might come a glimpse of what you’re feeling. Now l’m going to be quiet”.!®
She then invites the participants to go up to one of the adult teacher trainees
watching the lesson who will act as scribe and write down what the participant
tells them about their thoughts and feelings. She then says “board the ship,
and we'll hear all these things that people were thinking and feeling, right?”.!%
The students hear the adults read out their feelings and thoughts while they
104 Wagner: Dorothy Heathcote, 29.
105 Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, 180.
106 Tbid., 278.
107 Tbid., 266.
108 Wagner: Dorothy Heathcote, 17.
19 Ibid.
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