Drama Tuesday - Once More unto the Breach …

…into WAAPA for production of Human Cannon by Edward Bond.

 We are in the Enright Studio at WAAPA for the production of Edward Bond’s Human Cannon by Second Year actors. 

The twelve scenes provide a sweeping portrait of social oppression, struggle during the years of the Spanish Civil War. Our focus is Agustina, mother, wife, revolutionary, symbol. At the play’s opening she is burying her dead new born unbaptised child in the face of the implacable power of Church. At the play’s closing, as she is about to face a firing squad, as she is shown the face of her daughter’s new born, she finds comfort and can smile. In between, bloody events of revolutionary savagery, acts of war, terrorism and betrayal on a foundation of love and loyalty. She becomes the human cannon aimed at the heart of inhuman cruelty.

The audience flank the acting space on two sides. We entered through a scatter of hard backed chairs, a door frame, a wooden table and minimal props; suspended from the ceiling are broken chairs. Light haze filters the lighting. Atmospheric music underscores the action.

The cast plays more than sixty roles. Sometimes generic revolutionaries or soldiers or cardboard cutout caricatures of power – Priest, Franco look alike, Vendors – sometimes named roles. The use of minimal props is noteworthy for students of drama – sticks and lumps of wood pressed  into action as rifles and guns; a piece of fabric is pummelled as kneaded bread; wagon wheels and wood are shaped into a cannon. The use of sound effects was interesting – the loading and re-loading of the cannon – over the mimed actions using improvised props. The manipulation of minimal props and the easy transitions of locations was deftly handled (though I did feel that the weaving of chairs overhead was now a tired and overused theatrical commonplace – institutionalised to the point of overuse in Billy Elliot for example).

Edward Bond continues to have a throat-hold on theatrical power. The many inheritances of Brecht are evident. Announcing the titles of each section in handwritten chalk scrawled by the actors (but spell the title of the play correctly, please); the explicit telling of the fable of the play in the opening scene; the use of shadow puppetry; each scene presenting polemic dialectical discussion of themes embodied in human interactions. The push-pull of distancing us from the horror while also engaging us with gut-level action, worked. The broader socio-political purpose is foremost: the events from the Spanish Civil War serve as a template for wider struggles. This is a primer in recognising the broad purpose of theatre. 

The production moves rapidly from scene to scene even though the sweep of words and dialogue is ever present. Not a short production (we have become so used to bite size theatre that maybe we have lost the stamina required!). There is richly evoked poetry. Agustina’s lament for her country – the long lyrical heart of the play – is powerfully evoked. It finishes with the ironical question: who could not be happy in such a land?

According to a 1987 source (Debusscher), Human Cannon is unproduced. It makes me wonder if this production is a first. It presents an interesting challenge if it is. As a vehicle for acting students, there is plenty of challenge and scope. I was uncomfortable with the accent work, which sometimes verged on cartoon or parody. But, overall, the production proved to be a a successfully managed challenge. And, sometimes, the well-intentioned movement work and Spanish clapping, was under-developed. 

The fable of the piece is powerfully captured in the story of the stone and the tree. Again, Bond’s  nimble and practised handling of his craft shows the strength of his writing as it was realised in this production.

Overall, a strong production with an interesting (and diverse) group of actors. 

There is an excellent discussion of the play’s themes and contexts in Debusscher, G. (1987).

Bibliography

Debusscher, G. (1987). Human Cannon ·: Edward Bond's Vision of the Spanish Civil War. Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 65(3), 604-618. Retrieved from https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1987_num_65_3_3598

Drama Tuesday - The past empowers us for the present

 In 1994 Wayne Fairhead was keynote speaker at The NADIE (National Association for Drama in Education – now Drama Australia) National Conference in Perth. Wayne spoke from his experience of drama education in Ontario, Canada but also from a local perspective as he was once a local lad. 

In 2021, as drama educators in Australia face a Review of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts being conducted by ACARA the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, it is timely to reconsider some of the ideas that Wayne spoke about back in 1994. There are powerful resonances 

Curriculum is in a state of profound and constant change all around the world. We are being asked to be totally accountable by a society that sees our tasks in contradictory terms. Hence the jargon and whatever you want to call these action objectives – learning outcomes, standards, targets, etc. As teachers I think one feels powerless when changes happened so suddenly and then so called experts suggest a seemingly new direction.

Educators who tackle restructuring are caught in a time warp between the old and the new. On the one hand teacher teachers are being asked to teach the students to think – to forsake superficial coverage of content for depth and understanding. On the other hand they are still judged publicly and privately by standardised tests that emphasise isolated facts, wrote learning and content coverage.

I am hoping that we can find ways of sharing Wayne’s whole keynote with the wider drama education community. His theme was EMPOWERMENT AND A CHANGING CURRICULUM. 

I don’t think that what effective teachers, and I mean drama teacher specifically, actually do in their classroom needs to change all that dramatically. What we have to learn to accept is firstly to live with ambiguity and secondly develop an ability to clearly state what it is we expect our students will learn. The ambiguity is not going to go away – change is too rapid and individual countries do not control their economies. No one has all the answers therefore the team becomes increasingly more important. We can only solve problems together locally nationally and internationally. This is where I wish to affirm the statement that NADIE is “pulling a lot of strings” at the moment. It is! Here in Oz you are indeed lucky. You are a national team to be reckoned with. In Canada it’s a constant struggle because of the regionalism that exists. 

And so where do learning outcomes fit into all of this-the empowerment process and ongoing curriculum change. They are an attempt to CLARIFY what it is we do in our classrooms. They endeavour to provide an OPEN agenda for students. 

The focus on students is a timely reminder. 

There is so much more in Wayne’s keynote (which I re-found in a fax from him after the conference and which I have now transcribed for, hopefully, another generation). 

There are many connections with Wayne as he visits his family here (when – in pre-COVID-19 times – he could) and we met on many occasions around the world through IDEA. In 2004 Wayne was the Director of the IDEA Congress in Ottawa, Canada and continues his life long support for drama education.  

It is important that we do not lose sight of the shared wisdom of the past particularly when it can enlighten us about the present and future. 

And the peacocks that rule the roost in The New Fortune, still parade themselves across the stage as a descant on Hamlet’s lament for Poor Yorick. And my sad commentary on what the University has lost. 

The New Fortune Theatre, University of Western Australia

The power of music and song in children’s theatre

Last week I took our 4 -year- old grandson and his Mum to our state theatre to see a school holiday offering for young kids – “Room On The Broom”, based on the award winning children’s picture book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler, published by Macmillan Children’s books.

The show was in the main theatre, the Heath Ledger Theatre, and because ours was an impromptu decision to attend, we were seated in the last available seats, right up at the back of the circle and some distance from the stage. This did not bother young William in the least; he was intrigued by the size of the theatre and the height from which he was watching the stage. It was the largest theatre he has been in, to date, and I’d imagine it was the same for many in the young audience. Around us were children ranging in age from babies to around the 8 years mark. Lots of grandparents.

I wondered how we would all fare up there, so far from the action on stage, when the show started.

As it turns out, the physical distance did not prove a problem for William, nor for kids of similar age. Younger children were more easily distracted, but that age were distracted downstairs in the stalls as well.

The show was just the right length – about 55 minutes – and delivered with an energy of around 150%. This would be exhausting for an audience if sustained for much longer,  but seemed an important component in holding their attention in this short show.

There were puppets – big, realistic, glove style puppets. And the actors operating them provided their voices. (At one stage the actor managing the dog and the frog mixed up his accents but no one much minded). Suspension of disbelief was abundant, which was wonderful to see in this audience. (Side note – last holidays we went to a puppet show where the puppets were made of fruit and veges. This was a step too far for our 4- year- old – “You can’t really make a puppet out of vegetables, can you?”)

The main actor characters were the witch and her cat – a costumed actor -  and the audience loved them.

But by far the component of the show which held it all together and brought kids’ attention back to the stage was the music. Backing -tracks and live singing – in parts, and of a high standard.  Fun songs with catchy but easy tunes. Towards the end we were all invited to join in the refrain of the final song – and we did it lustily. Audiences love to join in.

As the performance ended, William declared, “That was a really good show”.  And it was. But without the music it would have been so much less. 

As we walked to lunch in the city, I was thinking about how enriching music and song is to so many of young children’s learning. It is of course learning in its own right, but music also enables so much more in us.

Drama Tuesday - How do you plan for teaching Drama

Changing times but consistent approaches

In sorting through some images in my photo library I found a photo of the first planning tool that I used as a drama teacher. Long time passing in the previous century, our class visited a Friday morning class at  Perth Modern School. The teacher, Juliana Kuperis, shared with us her system of lesson planning. In a folder, she had a collection of self-made lesson starter cards (as you can see, reproduced using ink stencils). The cards could be shuffled into different combinations. Collected from a range of sources, these cards included, stimulus ideas for improvisation; prompts for shaping an improv; reminders about voice projection. 

This toolkit accompanied me into  my first teaching appointment and was developed and extended as I taught. It was rudimentary but taught me the value of organisation (after all these years, I thank you Juliana).

Early in my teaching I found and used the kit based on the ideas of Viola Spolin. (still currently available on Amazon and similar:  ISBN-13: 978-0810140073 ISBN-10: 0810140071

My battered version is still part of my library and is useful and valued (though i still twitch when teachers describe drama activities as games As useful as Spolin was in helping us, the troubling connotations of the word “games” trivialising important learning lingers).

I still use many of the activities and approaches derived from Spolin’s work and it is great to revisit the card file system. 

Of course, the world of technology has  superseded card systems - although I did use for a number of years and recommend to students The drama Game File (https://dramaed.net/the-drama-game-file/) developed by Jonas Basom with accompanying CD-ROM (remember them!). The advertising blurb still says (perhaps a little disingenuous) No previous drama experience is required. The kit includes drama terminology, activities, activity cards for students. It is well  organised. This kist is now available digitally

Of course there is nothing to say that you couldn’t make your own card system - or equivalent in  digital worlds.

 Remember: A toolkit is just that – as a drama teacher there are choices to be made

The amount of material on the internet when you search for drama teaching ideas is a blessing and a curse.There are so many drama teaching ideas out there. The issue is always which ones work. A more important question is: 

Which ones are suitable for my students at this moment in the learning journey?

Which ones are age and developmentally appropriate?

which ones will promote the needed learning at this point in the students’ progression? 

Or even, which is best for this particular student now?

If teaching is the knowing and caring intervention in the learning process for a particular group of students, then what is my thinking process as a teacher in choosing activities? 

In my current approach, i have a series of drama teaching and learning strategies that are the equivalent of my initial card systems. The beauty of a system of strategies is that you have a tool that is adapted le to the text and context of your lesson. In using strategies you draw on your paradigmatic experience. That doesn’t preclude innovation and de novo thinking (inventing a new idea or approach). But it is efficient and must be used in collaboration with an understanding of progression – how student learning develops over time. 

There is a fundamental truth about teaching. What matters is not the activity but the choice of activity to match the student(s).A system helps organise the choices that a teacher makes. But what is essential is the human factor – a teacher makes choices. That is the first rule of planning for drama. 

Drama Tuesday - Principles of story in drama

Drama uses the Elements of Drama to tell stories. Story drives how we dynamically combine the Elements of Drama

Story in Drama is a way of making sense and meaning of experiences so that they can be shared and understood by others.

The Principles of Story include: Plot and sequencing of events; characters and people; setting; conflict and Language. 

Within each these major categories there are specific aspects that can be linked to both story and drama.

• Plot and sequence link to action and reaction; cause and effect; time and how it is manipulated; and, to the narrative arc of exposition, complication, rising tension, climax and resolution or denouement.

• In stories, characters and people link to protagonist and antagonist; rounded and flat characters; dialogue revealing roles, relationships and motivations.

• Setting links to a sense of place and time and to to mood and atmosphere.

• Conflict relates to the use of tensions and suspense; the various ways of thinking about the conflicts person to person; character to Nature, Society and Circumstances; and also the inner conflict within a character.

• Language is indispensable for story and drama; in story there is a focus on description, inner dialogue, symbol and the use of the author’s voice.

There are clear links between the Elements of Drama and the Principles of Story.

• Role characters and relationships are linked to aspects of Characters and people found in stories.

• Situation links to Plot and sequencing of stories as well as the setting.

• There is the use of tension in both drama and story.

• Drama uses aspects of language, ideas, meaning making and symbol.

The other Elements of Drama – Voice and Movement, Space and Time, Focus and Audience – are indirectly found in narrative stories.

In Drama we embody stories that narrative fiction tells through print or words alone.

Zoom Performance

To ZOOM or Not to ZOOM? That is the question.

As the pandemic burst on us, as drama teachers we went on-line. We made compromises, adaptations, learnt how to use ZOOM or TEAMS or similar. We sorted on-line content. We created on-line content. We were often in survival mode. There were so many unanswered questions. Now we are at the point of considering or drama students performing in the new world. ZOOM is a necessity but provides a changed aesthetic for performing. Just as each form or style of drama and theatre has a set of conventions to learn and understand, so too does on-line performance. It is timely to consider some of those conventions and the possibilities of this form of performing drama. 

A ZOOM performance has a unique sense of occasion. When we go to a traditional proscenium arch theatre we have the experience of the space, the seats, the lighting and atmosphere of an audience. When we are sitting on our home sofa with the laptop perched on our knees and the dog snuggled against our thighs, the experience is different. We are an audience of one without the familiar wrap of others nearby. The actors are in a different space - and separated from each other. Their use of space and time is limited to the frame offered by their camera. In short, what we see and hear and even feel are different. Going to the ZOOM theatre is a different experience.

Looking at some examples of school and university based ZOOM performances, prompted some thoughts and interesting questions.

Frame: The frame offered by ZOOM shapes the way actors perform. In examples I have seen, the actors are shown in Two Shot – we see their head and shoulders facing the camera. They can move in that frame closer or further from the camera but generally stay in neutral  space. In some examples, though, there is a more dynamic sense of placement of the actors within the frame – the actors moving closer or further away. This can, however, affect the sound captured.

Framing within the frame: Basically in a ZOOM performance there is a choice of Speaker view where we see the speaker’s image large on screen; or,  Galley view  where speakers are shown side by side. The choices presented are limited. 

Physicalising Facial Expression: This sort of framing focuses on facial expression. It relies on the animation of eyes, cheeks, brows, lips. While there is the old adage about screen acting – less is more – subtle facial expression in this sort of ZOOM performance presented challenges to an audience. The unforgiving eye of the camera is up close and personal. 

Sitting energy: it is interesting that in the examples I have seen, the actors are seated to perform to their camera. This gave a different sense of spine and body. While on stage we might be sometimes seated, actors are more often moving and on their feet. Sitting provides a different body orientation. I am not saying that the actors’ bodies were slumped but there was a seated energy rather than a balls-of-the-feet energy. I wondered what would have happened if the actors had been standing (adjusting their cameras to be at eye line)? Would the energy have been different? I suspect it would be more and differently energised.

More visual interest happened when one of the actor got up for a seated position and moved away from the camera. 

Lighting: it’s obvious when you see it on screen, but better lighting shows more detail. Flatter lighting drains the performance.

Accent: as with all mediated performances, the quality of voice and the use of accent are impacted by the technology. Overlapping voices which we expect and need in drama can sometimes be lost by the latency effect (time delays in the technology) or simply the broadband capacity of the connection. 

Relationships: Drama lives on relationships. How does a ZOOM performance change the implied relationships and accompanying tensions?

Space: Actors in different houses are by definition not in a shared space. What is the implied shared space of the ZOOM performance?

Length of performance: performed plays have been getting shorter and shorter (remember when Five Act plays were de rigeur, the current fashion). How long can a ZOOM Performance sustain our interest, particularly when the format of static shots are used?

Making drama is a succession of choices. How will I vary voice, body, use of space in response to the shifts in intention or roles, relationships and tension? How will production choices of costume, lighting, design, sound interact with audience?

Another point to note is about the emotional impact of a ZOOM performance. We are distanced by technology in ways that we aren’t in the warm dark space of a theatre. Does the technology distance us even further? Do we share the emotional experience in the same ways as seeing it live? I know that I can cry and laugh in watching a movie, can I do that in watching a ZOOM performance?

There are other questions too. Is it different when we watch a “live” ZOOM performance from when we watch one that has been recorded and we watch in our own time. In other words does synchronous and asynchronous performance matter?

A final observation. When we teach students about Brechtian verfremdungseffekt (see, for example, "Brecht for beginners," ; Unwin, 2014) – one of the techniques we use is to place actors in a dialogue side by side facing directly to the audience, rather than creating a naturalistic relationship. In a funny way, the side by side Gallery view of ZOOM gives us that sense of distancing. The two characters speaking to each other are addressing us as audience directly implying that they are talking to each other. ZOOM might be a great way of teaching Brecht techniques. 

Where will the use of ZOOM technology take us in drama and theatre?

Of course, we all can’t wait to get back into our theatre spaces – whenever that is permitted. But there will be continuing interest in using ZOOM technologies for Drama. 

Interesting to see how the industry is adapting to changed circumstances. MTI have just announced a “new online, licensing, ticketing and content creation platform designed to help schools and community theatres celebrate  live theatre”. https://www.mtishows.com/streaming-an-mti-show. Not yet available in Australia, 

How will this play out in drama education?

Bibliography

. Brecht for beginners. In M. Thoss (Ed.), Brecht for beginners. (pp. 74-84).

Unwin, S. (2014). The Complete Brecht Toolkit. London: Nick Hern Books.

Drama Term Tuesday #42

Applause

The clapping of hands as an expression of approval. Conventionally there is a round of applause at the end of a play so as to acknowledge and thank the actors and production team for their work.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts. Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.

Drama Term Tuesday 34

Meisner (Sanford Meisner)

Meisner approach to acting

Sanford Meisner (1905 - 1997) developed a form of actor training - Meisner Technique - derived from Method acting and the Stanislavski tradition. Meisner believed that the seeds of the craft of acting is the reality of doing. His approach focused on acting that is rooted in the body of the actor responding authentically to the specific moment of the play. The Meisner technique is often described as ‘living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”. Influenced other acting teachers such as David Mamet.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts. Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.

Drama Term Tuesday #32

Booth Theatres

A temporary portable theatre used throughout Europe from about 15th Century; derived from rows of raised booths or pageants in with Biblical episodes were played. Punch and Judy puppet shows at the British seaside continue the booth tradition.

Excerpt from Drama and Theatre Key Terms and Concepts. Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.

Drama Term Tuesday #31

Alexander Technique

A movement technique developed by Australian actor, F.M. Alexander in the late 19th century. Alexander Technique is a method designed to educator, or re-educate, people on physical ‘habits’ which limit movement, and help correct these in order to help the body move with ease, freedom and balance.

An important element of the Alexander Technique is the way thoughts influence movement and how ideas can be expressed in movement, e.g. by thinking about loosening a muscle it will loosen.

Excerpt from Drama Key Terms and Concepts. Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.