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THE Roots OF LIVING THROUGH DRAMA — HEATHCOTE AND MAN IN A MESS
imagine that the boat is being towed out to sea. The students get the chance
to hear how they and their peers thought they would feel while they are back
into playing the fictional situation.
Heathcote opens a space for the participants of the drama to reflect on
the fictional situation and more specifically on what people in that situation
think about and how they feel. There are several layers in action at the same
time: first, they are offered the opportunity to be in a fictional situation; then
they are given a chance to imagine how they would feel and think in that
fictional context. A third layer is created by them expressing their thoughts
verbally to people outside the situation. Finally, they can hear their reflections
on the situation, in the context of the thoughts and feelings of others, while
they are back in the fiction. Through stopping the situation and stepping in
and out of the fiction the participants get the opportunity to see themselves
in it from the outside. The reflection makes them aware of the different layers
of being in a fictional situation and more importantly distances them from
it. Participants are rationalising their feelings by articulating it verbally and
get an opportunity to ponder on the verbalised feeling of their role as they
are read out. Experience is rationalised and reflected on; after building belief
participants are made aware of the roles and situations they believe in.
Fleming sees the work done by Heathcote with the guards in the Stool Pigeon
drama that was cut out of Three Looms Waiting film as a process of “building
self-spectatorship in all the boys”."”° He says that the preparation for the scene,
referred to by Bolton as the “rational examination of how people like guards
signal power”,'" creates the sense of self-spectatorship. Here it is a rational
study of the use of signs that creates new understanding in the process of
LTD. Fleming goes further claiming that “we can also analyse this work not so
much as ‘living through drama’ but as the construction and communication
of meaning through the use of signs”.1? The two examples differ greatly.
I would argue that this second one leads to a more confident use of signs
and engagement in fiction-making within a living through improvisation,
while the previous example offers the possibility of rationalising feelings
and thoughts. Both rely on a rational understanding, but one in relation to
the form of drama, the other in relation to an individual’s subjective reactions
to the fiction.
Bolton offers a useful summary of what he sees as a central element of
Heathcote’s self-spectator. He says that it “protects the participant into
a level of emotion from which they remain safely detached, both engaged and
detached”" However, he also offers an example from her work and highlights
110 Fleming: Teaching Drama in Primary and Secondary, 121.
Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, 221.
Fleming: Teaching Drama in Primary and Secondary, 121.
Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, 200.
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