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CHAPTER THREE: BRINGING TOGETHER THE ÁRTISTIC AND THE EDUCATIONAL PRAXIS
foreshadow future occurrences so that the participants develop expectations
about the dramatic action. Ihe pre-text will also determine the first moments of
the action, establish location, atmosphere, roles, and situation. It provides the arc
from which it is possible to begin to infer the full circle of the action.*”
Often these pre-texts are elements of classic narratives, or images that evoke
a strong reaction and pull participants into the joint building of the story of
the process drama.
Centre: Bond uses the concept of the Centre which I have referred to before.
I think that using the concept of the Centre can be very useful for developing
classroom dramas as it incorporates the principal organising points referred
to above but in some aspects it offers more than focus and pre-text do and
plays an important role in creating DEs. Bond says that “the centre is the site
of the drama’s paradox”,*!® referring to the basic contradiction within the self,
discussed in detail in chapter two. Bond says that DEs are the “conscious use
of ‘theatrical drama’ to enact or illustrate the centre”.°“* He defines the Centre
as something that you find “when you have reduced the dramatic problem
to its essential confrontation”.*° The Centre is expressed in a central speech
which is repeated through the play “in increasingly searching ways. Each
character takes the speech and reworks it. This speech is the central speech
(CS) — it contains the basic theme of the play and also - in its utterance —
the way the characters relate to the theme”. The Centre of the play also
needs to be expressed through the images and action created by the actors
and director, and this needs to be the reference point in the use of different
strategies to create DEs.
The different concepts discussed here are used in creating the research
drama lessons in varying extent. I reflect on their implementation in the data
analysis. There are devices offered in drama education and in Bondian
practice as well to explore in the meta-texts of the situations. I discuss these
in the next section.
Layers of Meaning — Enacting the Invisible Object and Cathexis
As meaning making is at the centre of both educational and Bondian drama
it is important to identify structures that can help in this. Making meaning
can be understood from both the spectator’s and the creator’s position, from
512 O’Neill: Drama Worlds, 22.
513 Bond: Modern Drama, 14.
514 Tbid., 17.
515 Bond: Letters 3, 166.
516 Tbid., 161.
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