Oldal 50 [50]
OCR
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 +
