Page 43 [43]
OCR
CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA important realisation was linked to Bolton, whose structuring made her recognise that feverything you did could feed that initial world that was created.”'* Also, linking her work to the art form, she says she found it reassuring that “you didn’t have to come out of nowhere; you had the whole world of theatre to support you”. Pretexts to a Changing World O’Neill clearly trusts the problems that classic dramas engage in and she is also clear about how these need to work. “Drama is good at taking a situation to the extreme. [...] In process drama, often you don’t just have a fairly bad day — you have a dreadful day! King Lear doesn’t just fall out slightly with his daughters — he loses everything. And even when you think it might just turn out good, it doesn’t.”!** O’Neill begins her drama from what she calls pre-texts, these often carry some features of a possible world and foreshadow some kind of change that will alter the fictional world forever. “Ihe kinds of events that signal change and have proved dramatically effective in all eras include arrivals, encounters, returns, questions, proclamations, announcements of new laws, prophecies, and messages”'* explains O’Neill. The forms listed here signal a change in the fictional world and the participants of the drama begin by taking a relationship to this changing world. O’Neill starts out from a pretext that has dramatic potential and then develops the drama based on the participants’ contributions, so the specific problem engaged in would depend greatly on these inputs. One example described by O’Neill starts out from the return of a long-lost member of the community, Frank Miller, who turns out to be searching for his son. The drama develops into a tense family reunion, which ends in domestic violence." The teacher (in role) explicitly states at the beginning of the drama that everyone is directly affected by the problem of the returning Frank Miller, and participants are offered roles of those involved in the family problems as well. Besides having to confront the deeds of the past, the situation and the lives of the fictional roles are changed by the re-emergence of a family member. 142 Ibid. 143 Tbid. 44 Philip Taylor — Christine D. Warner (eds.): Structure and Spontaneity, the Process Drama of Cecily O’Neill, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 2006, 24—25. Cecily O’Neill: Drama Worlds: a framework for process drama, Portsmouth, Heinemann, 1995, 138. 146 Tbid., xi. = = 45 0 42 e
