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BEING IN THE SITUATION — THREE RE-INTERPRETATIONS OF LTD hopefully employed in the improvisation as well, where the facilitator offers similar tools — defining the space, the objects, including constraints, thinking through the levels of meaning. In the short drama about leaving the suitcase at the neighbour’s Davis starts with another improvisation of neighbours discussing things earlier, offering specific ideas what they could talk about. He then asks them to find new pairs and narrates the situation around the meeting. While one member of the pair is setting up the space the other member gets information from the teacher that is about why he/she wants to leave the suitcase there. In this case Davis relies on the existing cultural/political context of the Palestinian participants to raise important questions and look at elements of drama with a simple improvisation task. In both examples ‘being’ in the situation is facilitated by building or using specific contexts, playing a role is enhanced by offering elements or objects that can be used in the playing. These examples are by no way exhaustive, another example discussed later employs a lengthy process of building role, and in another example Davis begins the drama with groups designing a space. Our actions have meaning in relation to the context they are done in, and the context influences what we do. The examples discussed here from Davis aim to contextualise being in the fiction, so actions can be understood in their complexity. Two things stand out for me in Davis’s drama, one is the emphasis on coding the socio-cultural elements into the fictional situation practically so they can be examined further, and the other is offering the aim of making meaning as the basis of theatre work and also some tools and concepts to rework the scenes and use the same tools in improvisations too. These ideas are experimented with in the empirical research I conduct. Metaxis and Seeing Ideology In the examples discussed above the participants create an awareness of the art form, Davis puts emphasis on learning about using theatre as well. Beside this aspect of ‘making’ there is also an element of creating the story in the open-ended improvisations of the neighbours and in the stable. The detail put into creating the fictitious spaces makes the participants aware of being in the fictional world. These elements help in creating the sense of being in two worlds at the same time, the metaxis Davis explicitly aims for.© In the examples participants engage in situations where values clash within the fictional roles, but they also remain roles, so participants can freely explore representing values others than their own. In the fiction they see how 168 Tbid., 53. +5] +
