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CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA the socio-political context influences people’s thinking and actions and create contradictions for them. If the connection between the problems in the fiction and the reality are appropriate, then due to the metaxis effect participants will also be forming their own values as they clash within their fictional role. Davis states that “drama needs to be able to involve us in such a way that we meet ourselves giving us the possibility of reworking the ideology that has entered us: the possibility of glimpsing how society has corrupted us”.’® The structures presented here are examples of work towards these aims. Summary: Aspects of Different LTD Practices to Consider in the Research I have analysed some examples from great bodies of work of Heathcote’s Man in Mess period, and Bolton’s, O’Neill’s and Davis’ re-interpretation of LTD. The most important point of connection in these practices are that all of them aim to create moments where participants can experience the immediacy of facing unfolding problems within a fictional world. It is also clear from the examples that the ‘living through’ experiences are only part of the whole process. Elements of different approaches are present; tasks, exercises, games and conventions in different examples help participants get to the experiential role-play. There are elements of presenting besides ‘making’, and spectatorship is also an important element in various ways. It is important that the crisis or problems the drama engages in are experienced as theirs, rather than from a distanced position in the living through moments of the drama. My research lessons will also build on these defining characteristics of LTD. The following qualities apparent in the examples of LTD examined can be explored further in the drama lesson created in my research: NARRATIVES: The narratives used in the examples differed in many aspects, but what made them extreme on the one hand, was the proximity of the participants in the fiction to them, it was happening to the roles they were in. On the other hand, it was the connection between the reality of the participants and the crisis in the narrative that made it extreme. Social expectations or norms contributing to the crisis were present in the examples from Bolton’s and Davis’s work, and the clash of these norms with basic human reactions within the individual was the most visible in the dramas of Davis. This aspect of the crisis connects strongly with narratives used by Edward Bond and will be useful in designing my lessons. STRUCTURING: There were different examples of structuring the lessons to enhance participants to be in the drama. While Heathcote and O’Neill offered great freedom for participants to define the narrative and take 18 Ibid., 43. + 52 +
