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CHAPTER Two: WHAT Is A DRAMA EVENT
phrases, idioms and images that can be recognised, but very often these are
used in some uncharacteristic way. Examples of classical cultural tropes
being revisited and re-described in current contexts were present in the plays
discussed, like the action of stoning or blinding.
Situations showing choices and decisions: Most of the situations in the plays
analysed present extreme choices faced by the roles, and through their actions
show significant decisions that they make. The moments need to be identified
in the text and can be used to open gaps for the audience as well to identify
the choices that are faced in the fiction.
Development from the ‘normal to the extreme: Bond explains that it is “usual
for my plays to create a sense of absolute normality, which they then expose,
uncover, use, for their dramatic purpose”.“” Besides defining the context
the sense of normality also helps the audience to make connections between
the fictional situations and their own lives, and the development towards
the unusual or extreme can then imply a questioning of what is considered
normal as well.
Sudden changes, sharp contrasts: In many situations DEsarecreatedthrough
sudden changes. In the examples above we had changes in the consciousness
of the role, or changes from language to inarticulate sounds, or there are
also sudden contrasting actions like killing the child in the case of the Man.
Sharp contrasts are also created by placing two characters side by side who
are engaged in very different worlds or stories, but are in one situation. Bond
refers to this as the device of the "two worlds"" and a clear example of this
can be found at the end of his play titled The Edge,*“* where Ron is lost in his
thoughts re-discovering his memories of his father’s death while the Stranger,
an old man who barged into their house much earlier, is walking around with
a knife in his hands trying to decide if he should kill Ron or not.
The proxy: In some of his plays Bond creates a ‘proxy’ of some sort, a surface
that allows the audience to engage with and fill imaginatively. For example,
the puppet in The Children is such a surface, or the dummy in The Under
Room, but in other plays like Eleven Vests**® or Olly’s Prison“ there are
characters who remain silent through full scenes offering the audience the
same possibility.
I have identified these underlying structures in Bond’s plays that offer
the possibilities of creating DEs, they are structures that can be recognised and
might be used to help in the creation of DEs. To summarise I will use a quote
#2 Edward Bond: Unpublished letter to Susana Roman, Personal communication, 15 April,
2011, 1.
Bond: Commentary on the War Plays, 325.
444 Edward Bond: The Edge, in Plays:9, London, Methuen Drama, 2011, 209-244.
445 Edward Bond: Eleven Vests, in Eleven Vests and Tuesday, London, Methuen, 1997, 1-34.
446 Edward Bond: Olly’s Prison, in Plays: Seven, London, Methuen, 2003, 1-94.
443
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