Oldal 50 [50]
BEING IN THE SITUATION — THREE RE-INTERPRETATIONS OF LTD
the father wants his daughter to take her dead mother’s place as the host of
a dinner, while she is cleaning the harness in the stable after deciding to drive
the carriage to visit relatives the next day. The situation is set in a historical
period of the suffragette movement. The gender issue is still relevant today,
though in different ways than a century ago; similarly to questions related
to the relationship of parent and child, which are also strongly present in
the drama. There is an overarching ideological question related to how culture
determines the way we see roles and consider something normal or immoral.
Davis chooses a problem situated in the context of social change, one that
has multiple layers and strong connections to the lives of the participants.
The father leaving his daughter at a mental asylum is an extreme situation, one
that would draw teenagers in. The event demands some sort of explanation,
which is created in the improvisation with part of the story offered by
the teacher, but the other half created by participants on their feet.
Davis is explicit in aiming to find contexts for the drama “that students can
relate to”,/“* so in working with teachers in Palestine he sets up a pairwork
improvisation where a new, friendly and politically active neighbour tries to
leave a locked and heavy suitcase with the neighbour next door, claiming
that it contains family papers. But it might just contain weapons. The use
of the givens of the cultural context in this drama offers participants
the possibility to live through a complex situation that raises fundamental
questions of relationships to others. In both examples the crises examined
in the drama are born out of the contradictions ingrained in the fictional
cultural contexts, but are also strongly connected to the situation of
the participants.
A third example Davis offers is an improvisation created out of situation
where a mother needs to get to the supermarket to stretch her money by
shopping the Sunday bargains, but her daughter who is just learning to tie her
shoelaces wants to do it herself, but is unsuccessful in tying it. As time passes
the tension of the situation rises.
All these examples are based on different values clashing within an
individual. In the last one it is the financial constraints and the pressure to put
food on the table clashing with a very basic human parenting value of fostering
independence and development of children. In the situation in Palestine it is
the duality of wanting to be friendly and supportive, but the political situation
creating a distrust of others, and these two clashing within one person.
The first example offers a father whose feelings for his child are overwritten by
the social perceptions of gender roles. The situation improvised by students is
the moment of decision, so they are exploring how can social norms become
more important than the child-parent relationship.
184 Ibid., 77.
s 49 +