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CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
Structuring Perspectives
In some cases O’Neill would start a drama in role, addressing the participants
in a way that they are placed into some general role as well. She would provide
information step by step to offer different possibilities for the members of
the group to step in, validate and build the fictional world with questions,
responses or objections. The process drama Frank Miller starts with
the teacher in role saying: "I hope no one saw you come here. I sent for you
because I thought you ought to know about it as soon as possible, since this
affects us all. We are all involved. I received this note today. It says that Frank
Miller is coming back to town"."! These sentences give the participants
the information that someone is coming back, and that they are all affected by
it. It sets a situation which they need to deal with together. There are only a few
constraints placed in the situation — there is an urgency, some level of secrecy,
and that they are all affected. There is a classic theme, a pre-text of someone
coming back from the past. Much is left to the participants in what to make
of this situation and also to the teacher in how to structure it further. It leaves
so much open that it is almost a variation of the classic Heathcote starting
question ‘what would you like to make a play about?’, but as in the example
shown in an earlier section Heathcote would spend a lot of time with steps
in building the specific context and the belief in it. Here the participants find
themselves in a very loosely defined situation, drawn into a “conspiracy of
deception, impossible to sustain beyond a few minutes”, states Bolton in
his analysis of this lesson. A discussion out of role is inevitably needed where
the participants decide about the specific context and their roles as townsfolk
who are all responsible. This is followed by tasks to create the past, moments
from the early life of Frank Miller as tableaux. Improvised encounters follow,
where the townsfolk try to find out which stranger could be the aged Frank
Miller, and one of these improvisations is shared as performance. Smaller
group and whole group discussions take the story in the direction of a father
coming back to meet his estranged son. O’Neill includes a game of Hunter
and Hunted to bring the feeling of tension into the situation. This is followed
by the first meeting between Frank and his son in pairs. The Son tells his
Mother that he met Frank, played out in a Forum Theatre form where the two
volunteers playing the roles can be stopped during the scene and actions and
dialogue can be suggested by the participants observing the situation. Dreams
are created with different constraints on forms and a family dinner with all
three roles in it is improvised in groups. One of the scenes is recreated, and as
151 O’Neill: Drama Worlds, vii.
152 Gavin Bolton: Process Drama, in Philip Taylor — Christine Warner (eds.): Structure and
Spontaneity, the Process Drama of Cecily O’Neill, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 2006,
45.
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