Oldal 37 [37]
CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
Gavin Bolton
In his Introduction to a collection of Boltons essential writings Davis
summarises Bolton’s life-long concerns as defining “the relationship of drama
to play; the cognitive/affective nature of the experience; the relationship
of children’s play, dramatic playing and theatre; and helping children to
understand the social world around them and their relationship to it”.’”! Bolton
defines his own work as “a re-interpretation of Heathcote’s methodology
that has taken ‘Living through’ Drama in a direction never intended by her
and perhaps, from her point of view, off-target, if not misguided”.’” One of
the crucial elements of Bolton’s work is related to the nature of the ‘being’,
the quality of living through that his drama aims for. I will examine two
of his lesson plans to try and find the connections and dissimilarities with
Heathcote’s work. One of the lessons is a drama based on Arthur Miller’s
The Crucible investigating the witch hunt of Salem with adolescents or trainee
teachers, the other one is about the nativity for six-seven year old children.
Crisis and Awe
Bolton’s Crucible drama develops into a central scene in which
the seventeenth century puritan community is confronted by their priest
who found out that some of the teenagers from the village had been dancing
naked in the forest. The whole group improvisation in the church evolves
into offering the adolescents of the village the power of pointing at anyone
to blame them for luring them into this ‘sin. The unfolding crisis links
many social and individual elements together. On the one hand, there is
the generational aspect, children can decide about the fate of adults. This
also becomes a political question, people who were powerless suddenly come
to decide about others’ lives and death. Manipulation also plays an important
role in the situation, not only among the teenagers, but also on behalf of the
Priest and the parents. The possibility of this breaking into hysteria is almost
programmed into the conditions. There is a strong ideological element as
well in the situation, opening questions about the contradictions of faith
and belief. Bolton explains that he looked for a “pivotal scene which would
portray the period, while at the same time capturing the sense of potential
power over parents lying within the hands of their off-springs”.’”?
The richness of problems encoded within this situation is especially
important because the participants of the drama have to deal with them
21 David Davis: Introduction, in David Davis (ed.) Gavin Bolton: The Essential Writings, Stoke
on Trent, Trentham Books, 2010, xv.
2 Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, 217.
13 Bolton: Acting Classroom Drama, 222.
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