Page 203 [203]
OCR
CHAPTER FIVE: DATA ANALYSIS dramaturgical structures I identified in Bond’s plays that they could use within the improvisations. Based on the underlying dramaturgical structures pinpointed and explained in detail in chapter two of this book I created a list of practically implementable structures that I shared with participants at some point in the lessons. The first list consisted of seven items which I later simplified to the following four (I have added an example to make them more accessible here from The Children, a Bond play discussed in detail in chapter two): I. Unexpected/extreme action — a completely unexpected action, that can be extreme because it is so unexpected, or because it expresses something deeply supressed but present behind the situation. An example from The Children: The Man being carried by the children says “My son, my son” and cradles the brick that is from his burnt house and which he uses to kill the children. II. Turning social roles upside down — social roles assign an ‘expected’ behaviour — this is how a parent should behave etc. These can be played with, contradicted, or can slip off at moments. An example from The Children: The Mother asks her son (Joe) to burn a house down and explains why it is in the interest of the Joe to do it. III. Creating gap in time or space or meaning — using language (foreign language, sounds, gibberish), time (pace) and the physical space to open gaps in meaning in the situation by creating contradictions. An example from The Children: The Man says “hgn” after smothering one of the children with a towel and smacking her on the head with a brick. IV. Everyday objects that are familiar to us can create a useful focus point if they are used in any of the structures above. An example from The Children: The brick which is used in the first scene by Joe to whack his doll, is also used to swear on by the whole group. And the Man also uses a brick to take his revenge. While I am fully aware of the dangers of identifying and using just some elements of a complexly connected body of artistic work, I thought that these three components: an aim for creating drama, a Centre of investigation and dramaturgical structures together can offer a usable but also coherent aesthetic grounding for participants of the drama lessons. I also decided to work with secondary school aged students in this cycle, because I wanted to explore these complex ideas without having to deal with the issues arising from age that could divert the focus of the research. Testing various frameworks that allow the inclusion of these structures in the drama lessons was an important aim. One section of the data analysis looks at the frameworks I implemented in this process. First, I offer a short summary of the lessons conducted in this cycle. + 202 +
