Oldal 102 [102]
DIFFERENT THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF DEs — SURVEY OF LITERATURE
happening”.“”° According to Davis this action evokes reason and imagination
at the same time because of the extremity of the situation. The act of pouring
the coffee out is a contradictory action, it portrays the soldiers on the one
hand as workers outraged by their working conditions, but at the same time
the fact that they are furious about murdering people because they cannot
drink their coffee juxtaposes the value of the lives of the Jews being shot
and the cup of coffee that is spilled. The act of connecting the two actions
— drinking (and spilling) coffee and mass murder - is also quite disturbing,
because many of us take part in one of the two, but suddenly our early
morning beverage becomes the protagonist of one of history’s most notorious
crimes. Davis points to the visual image created through the action in the play
and claims that while “one member of the audience might be disturbed by
the splashing of dark liquid across the stage and viscerally connect it with
blood being spilled. Another might feel in this action an act of autonomy, of
self-assertion”.*” Davis argues that Bond bypasses culture and ideology coded
into the language by creating “the possibility to think with the eyes”.*”
Besides doing a thorough survey of Bond’s theory, in his PhD thesis
Amoiropoulos*® also analysis a Bond play’s rehearsal process by Big Brum
Theatre in Education company. In his case study Amoiropoulos documents
and reflects on the practical development of Bondian concepts in the rehearsal
room to discuss how their implementation in process drama could be
enhanced. I will now look at one moment from A Window" that is discussed
in depth by Amoiropoulos, as this highlights all the important elements that
he attributes to DEs. I will offer a short description of the full play as it is
important to understand the specific moment discussed by Amoiropoulos,
and I will also be referring to the play in my own analysis further on.
All three scenes of A Window are set in room in a flat in a high-rise block,
which has a chaise-longue, a wooden table and a chair in it, a door at the back
and a window towards the audience which is not physically represented
according to the stage directions. The first panel begins with Liz making her
bed on the chaise-longue which upsets her partner, Richard, when he arrives
after a long day out, looking for work. The two get into a quarrel about Liz
moving out of the bedroom because she wants “a bit a’ quiet”.*° It turns out
that Liz is upset because of a story she read in the newspaper about a mother
blinding her own child, so that the child relies on her and stays with her all her
life. Richard does not understand why they cannot sleep together because of
400 Davis: Imagining the Real, 133.
401 Ibid.
402 Ibid.
403 Amoiropoulos: Balancing Gaps.
404 Edward Bond: A Window, in Plays:9, London, Methuen Drama, 2011, 177-208.
405 Ibid., 181.
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