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BEING IN THE SITUATION — THREE RE-INTERPRETATIONS OF LTD from within the specific context. They are not dealing with different aspects separately, but in their complexity within the situation. With their actions, reactions or even inaction they influence the unfolding events and create new situations for themselves and others involved. There is also a clear connection between the fictional world and the reality of the participants even though the event takes place in historic times. The question of relationship with the adult world, or of responsibility and blame and being questioned in quasi-trial situations are parts of most teenagers’ lives. In another drama Bolton worked with children who chose to do a play about the nativity, as it was Christmas time. The Nativity drama™ is based on Joseph and the pregnant Mary looking for a place to spend the night. The participants are a family in Bethlehem who see Joseph supporting Mary and searching for accommodation. When he asks them, they invite him in. The teacher then changes roles and becomes someone unhappy about their decision to take in these people, provoking an argument and warning them of possible troubles. Finally, the teacher narrates that in the middle of the night a baby boy was born, and as they pass the baby around the children name him Jesus. There does not seem to be any apparent crisis in this case, possibly because the testing of values is more playful and the central aim is probably to offer the participants a dramatic experience of a story that is a basic narrative of their culture. But it creates the possibility to experience a moment of awe, the magic of the birth of a baby, the nativity. The central play here seems to be between the story from the cultural canon and the story of the children. Through this dramatization they come to own the narrative to some extent. The most apparent difference between the crisis in the Crucible drama and examples of Heathcote’s LTDs is that here there is a clearer ideological, political element. Another important difference is that Bolton draws the participants into a long improvisation to experience dealing with the crisis, rather than stepping out of it to build a rational understanding of it. There is an emphasis on experiencing the extraordinary in the Nativity drama too, being in the situation is clearly not only an element but seems to be one of the aims of this work. Structuring into Being Bolton offers the role of a family in Bethlehem to the six-seven year olds. They decide on where the house is in the classroom space and he asks them to watch a stranger arriving to the town. The teacher in role behaves as if he was supporting a pregnant woman, tells her to keep calm, sits her down and says that he is going to ask some people if they will let them in for the night. 14 Bolton: New perspectives, 82.
