Does Theatre Need A Theatre?

In senior Drama yesterday we were undertaking theory work on Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theatre style. It is only now that my students are coming to realise that they have been doing "Poor Theatre" since Year 7. No sets in their drama skits, few props (many of which were transformed into other objects mid-performance) and the actors were always central to the drama.

No dazzling stage lights, glittered costumes or fancy make-up; just a few tables, a couple of chairs, sheer talent and a helluva lot of enthusiasm! But it is now that they understand all this has a name and was actually a form of theatre popularised (and simultaneously secret-ised) by Grotowski in the 60s and 70s.

Their understanding of Grotowski's ideas were further enhanced by a simple quote from Peter Brook's seminal theatre text The Empty Space. The sparseness of Grotowski's performance needs were likened to those famous opening lines of Brook's:

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.

This quote, if given to students at the start of a senior Drama/Theatre course, will really allow them to have a more sophisticated understanding of theatre’s possibilities with all the material they create in the future. Because if they understand what Brook is saying here, then they understand what stripped down theatre can be in its most basic form. From here, the possibilities for performance are limitless.

So, what is the most intense theatre I have seen in the past five years?

A fight in the schoolyard of a boys’ school where a ring of spectators, gladiator style, through a system of unspoken codes and conventions, milled five-deep in a circle around the action in less than a minute.

The last time I ‘went’ to the theatre?

This afternoon at my school’s annual swimming sports carnival, where groups of girls cheered their friends along, parents observed the action quietly from a distance at the sidelines, while other students chanted and danced at the edge of the pool. All this time, the real theatre was happening over eight lanes of water inside the unofficial theatre.

So, in the vein of Jerzy Grotowski, ‘theatre’ doesn’t require glamorous sets and costumes in order for it to occur.

And in the words of Peter Brook, ‘theatre’ doesn’t even require a ‘theatre’ in order for it to be meaningful and real……..

Ball Up

Ever played 'Ball Up' with a Drama class?

It is the simplest of warm up activities and yet so much fun.

So today we played Ball Up for a while in Year 12 Drama.

Now the rules of this activity are extremely complex, so I'll go through them slowly.

1. Pass a (largish) ball randomly around the room without letting it bounce (a rubbber ball from any toy shop is fine)
2. The whole group counts simultaneously as the game progresses
3. You are not allowed to hit the ball twice in a row
4. See how high a number the group can reach before the ball falls to the ground
5. Start again at zero and try to beat your previous highest score

That's it! Dead easy!

Sounds like you could happily play this for five or ten minutes, right? Nope! Classes that really go sick on it can't get enough of it and want to play it for 30 minutes or more sometimes (then I get a guilty conscience, start questioning the educational validity of the activity dragging on so long and begin wondering whether my class is really 'using' me and prefer playing this game instead of more serious work!).

The activity's benefits are many. The end result is effective teamwork. Some groups are great at it, whilst others start poorly and improve with regular playing. One could argue it is a far better activity for ensembles, play or musical casts at school, than using it in a standard Drama or Theatre class because of the teamwork aspect. Along the way, the group also learns movement and concentration skills. Of course, all these are transferrable to the stage at another time in a more formal performance setting.

You are guaranteed a hell of a lot of fun. Assuming you play the game with a harmless rubber ball filled with air, then you will see students accidentally smacking the ball into their best friend's head, others occasionally falling over forgetting it's not beach volleyball (clear the room of obstacles first!) and all will withness general funny stuff while participants enthusiastically find themselves doing unconventional 'moves' trying to 'save' the ball from hitting the ground! By the way, the teacher should always join in on the fun with this activity.

I seem to remember getting over 100 in the dark ages when playing it in my first year Drama class at uni, but my record with students is (in my opinion a humble) 65. Play it, beat it and post your score on this blog, I say!

One day last year in a junior class, the room had ceiling fans running on a very hot day. Our rubber ball popped mid-game on one of the fans and died instantly. Dramatic as ever, we stopped the game, laughed for a few seconds, immediately impro'd a cemetery scene and lay the 'dead' ball against the bottom of a pillar in the corner of our classroom. We had everything but the bugle playing softly in the background. You see, we had given our ball a name a few weeks before, so this death was personal. After a minute's silence with the class bowing their heads respectfully standing around the dead ball (no, I'm not joking), I ran to my office, grabbed the spare back-up ball, gave this one a name and off we went and continued the game!

The game does have a limited attraction to certain age groups, though ..... loved by everyone from 10 to 100! If you've never played Ball Up before, why not give it a go!

Passion Is Back In Fashion!

In reference to my post on passion in Drama teaching (Feb 6th), what do you know, it seems passion is back in fashion!

The official motto for the XX Winter Olympics at Torino is:

"Passion Lives Here"

Just as it needs to live in the heart of every Drama teacher.

I don't know about you, but passion lives here too, I tell ya!

Artist or Educator?

When we teach Drama or Theatre, are we artists or educators?

How much of the artist is in the teacher?

Do we need to be practising our art form while teaching, in order to be better educators?

Personally, apart from the traditional stuff in plays and musicals at high school, I haven't really acted on the amateur or professional stage since I started Drama teaching. Whilst I know many Drama teachers (somehow?) wrangle the demands of teaching while performing in shows on the side. I take my hat off to them because I don't know where they find the time or the energy!

But, does this make us better Drama teachers? Are we missing something if we don't regularly practise our art outside of the Drama/Theatre classroom? If we don't practise our acting, singing or stagecraft, then do we have less knowledge to share with our students and therefore less experience? If we act in amateur plays or musicals, is this another form of professional development?

I suspect there are valid arguments for both sides with this one. Just how important or relevant is practising our art form outside the classroom? Does this make us better Drama educators?

And how much of the artist is in YOU in the Drama classroom?