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To MAKE OR TO EXCAVATE — THE ROLE OF THE ACTOR/PARTICIPANT
stretching it. Would it be possible for participants in the final situation of
the Child Abuse drama to dig deeper in the situation for themselves and also
for those watching in role? A question for further investigation is what sort of
support can participants in the drama lesson get to engage and create meaning
on different levels about extreme situations they are ‘living through’.
After looking at one specific example integrating the two fields I continue
by discussing issues of more general concern in the next sections of this
chapter.
To MAKE OR TO EXCAVATE — THE ROLE OF THE ACTOR/PARTICIPANT
Every drama workshop or theatre lesson offers activities and tasks to
participants, but for a teacher to be able to structure one task after another
there needs to be an underlying assumption about the role of the students
in the lesson. This role is also linked with what participants can get out of
engaging with the specific activity.
Bolton’s formative book titled Acting in classroom drama looks at the work
of the pioneers of drama education from the perspective of the participants,
arguing that there are important differences between the acting behaviour of
students in classroom drama and actors on stage. Bolton’s analysis provides
a useful framework for comparing the role of the participants in LTD and
Bondian drama, as the latter offers a somewhat different role to actors than
many traditional theatre approaches.
Bolton claims that the concept of audience is “a feature common to all
acting behaviour”
that the age-old dichotomy of performing versus experiencing has not
been a useful one. He states that those reasoning against performance in
classroom drama, for example Harriet Finlay-Johnson, wanted to move the
audiences’ attention from the skill involved in acting to the content students
are presenting.’ This is why Bolton proposes the category of presenting
as one of the modes of acting behaviour in which “showing is the principal
purpose”, with a subcategory of performing, in which “acting is highly
relevant in itself”.””' The difference between the two acting behaviours does
not depend on the presence of an audience Bolton argues.*” He breaks down
the dichotomies appearing in the history of drama education and comes to
the conclusion that the spectatorship does not depend on having an actual
including classroom drama. He argues however,
46° Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama, 259.
#70 Ibid., 262.
#1 Ibid., 263.
72 Ibid., 259.