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RESEARCH LESSONS IN RELATION TO CRITICISM OF LTD
can consciously use artistic structures and experience living through
improvisations as part of the same process. One reason for this is that the two
processes, creating living through experiences and using theatre structures
and concepts, complement each other in their basic understanding of drama,
and have similar aims and objectives.
The next section will look at how the approach used in my research
responds to some of the criticism directed at LTD.
RESEARCH LESSONS IN RELATION TO CRITICISM OF LTD
Different critiques of the living through approach were discussed in the first
chapter. Four of the issues raised connect in some way to my research
question, these are the following:
« the need of high investment of energy and time in building the fictional
worlds and belief compared to the outcome of the encounter;
+ the conception that LTD is part of “the naturalistic fallacy”
lost contact with theatre;
+ questions raised about the protection of the participants in relation to
the intertwining nature of fiction and reality;
« questions raised about the relationship of rational reflection and
metaxis.
As these issues were discussed in depth in chapter one. I will not offer
a renewed analysis of them. I will only add the new aspects and considerations
that my research has brought to these ongoing debates within the wide field
of drama education.
Hornbrook, among others, raises the issue of too much time invested
in achieving “‘awesome’ dramatic occasions” and questions whether it is
“profitably spent”.”* Some of the findings relate to the question of investment
from the student’s perspective. Students could bring in issues and problems
they were interested in when the narrative explored through drama was
based on fundamental human problems. There was a case when students
found the drama lesson not interesting enough; the analysis showed that the
angle of connection to the narrative had not been identified well by me in this
case. From the students’ perspective investment in a lesson can be considered
‘profitable’ when they can engage in questions that are important for them.
Neelands connects this issue with another important question linked to
the living through approach to drama when he writes that “spending four
hours or more in the classroom ‘building investment’ and ‘belief’ in an
and has
77 Neelands: Mirror, Dynamo or Lens, 146.
748 Hornbrook: Education and Dramatic Art, 80.
+239 +