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CHAPTER Two: WHAT Is A DRAMA EVENT
The text written by Bond offers many possibilities to open up gaps for
the audience in performance. I will discuss questions related to performance
later in this section through the example from another play, I will concentrate
here on the possibilities that are present in the text. There are some lines in
the text that invite the audience’s own interpretation, an individual response.
One such line is ‘for the kid’ which is repeated three times at the end of
the scene. It is not evident from the play whether it refers to the past or the
future, but it clearly shows that Dan has found some explanation or has
created some understanding of his task. It is left to the audience to decide for
themselves what that actually could be. The ‘aaaaaooghhghgh’ that precedes
this line is a moment in which Dan’s frustration culminates at not being
able to get a satisfying explanation for his mother’s death. The boy’s search
for an answer builds up during the scene in which he uses more and more
radical tools to get a satisfactory response from Richard. It is only when he is
literally knocked out of this pursuit that he reaches a realisation that changes
his behaviour. The manifestation of this turning point is an inarticulate cry
which can open a felt reaction from the audience. It is a breaking point in
the narrative, but also a release from a tense situation that was becoming
completely unpredictable. Suddenly the whole situation changes. This is
followed by the question posed by the sentence ‘for the kid’, but it is important
to acknowledge that the two are linked. The engagement of the audience in
the DE is a combination of a felt reaction and an intellectual search.
The audience constantly has to make choices while watching the second
part of the scene as it is structured around ambiguities. These choices
for the audience can also be seen as small gaps heading towards the final
rupture in the situation. The actions and lines of both Dan and Richard offer
possibilities for the spectator to associate herself with either of them. While
it is easy to connect with Dan’s desperation to find an answer and his urge
to keep his images of Liz intact, it is also possible to connect with Richard’s
desperate struggle to keep his eyes and stay alive. Because the two are posed
against each other the audience needs to constantly re-evaluate who they
go with. Another duality that the situation contains is the constant sway
between tragic and comic. Both the misunderstandings between Dan and
Richard in the dialogue after Richard is tied to the chaise-lounge and also
Dan’s handling of his mother’s clothes can leave the audience having to decide
whether they see it as comic or tragic.
As this DE is at the end of the play it obviously builds upon many previous
moments. All the recurring motifs and structural elements of the play emerge
and are reinterpreted in this situation. The story of the blinding has been
heard in the first panel and then seen almost happening in the second, it is
reinterpreted in this last panel. Dan re-lives the story from the perspective of
the blinder when he is threatening Richard and also the blinded kid when he
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