Incite/Insight Spring-Summer 2019 Incite_Insight—Spring_Summer 2019 Final | Page 28

in his Making Sense of Drama,
referring to the “switch” from “‘would
‘to’ is’” as “an immediate indication
that the group has moved into
drama-time.” How can teachers
help students achieve the switch?
How can we promote a taste for
stepping into action? A focus on
action is relevant, too, to my own
teaching. I have been revising a
process drama that I will use this
spring to launch a play-making
process with K-2nd grade learners.
I offer here some of the research of
Francophone practitioners into the
nature of dramatic action which has
become a fertile source for reflection
as I cultivate practices that might
better support my students in their
engagement with each other, the
world of our play, and the work of
theatre-making.
Story and frame
Francophone practitioners have
noted the effectiveness of story
and fictionalization in motivating
dramatic action. In her book on
youth theatre and theatre for young
audiences, Apprivoiser le Théâtre,
Hélène Beauchamp links working with
story (la fable) to several aspects of
the impulse to create: story enables
participants’ “expression in words,”
allows the “deepening of fictional
and familiar worlds,” facilitates the
structuring of images and actions,
and fosters the development of
content and the “awareness and
clarifying of themes.” Drawing from
understandings of production and
performance (mise en scène), Diane
Saint-Jacques finds that methods
of improvisation fall short if they
emphasize expression and action
only, arguing that “the quality” of
the taking of action “is revealed
in the precision of character and
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story.” Similar perhaps to the way
“frame” in process drama usage
enacts dramatic tension, Saint-
Jacques views “the precision of fictive
meaning (la precision du sens fictif)”
and its embodiment in the work of
the player (le joueur) as necessary
for theatre-making both in the
classroom and on stage.
Though my teaching through
process drama centers on the
building of narrative, I am moved
to consider how well my structuring
of dramatic forms works to engage
my students in the story we are
creating. In reviewing lesson plans
for our exploration of the rainy,
muddy world of our play on the first
day of rehearsal, I see an emphasis
on variation in tone, role, and form,
which is not always coupled with
a drive to further the narrative
through the actions of characters.
These reflections constitute a
philosophical shift in focus. What
would it look like to concern me
less with a progression of actions
but instead with the construction of
the narrative? How would it shape
students’ experiences if I looked not
only for evidence of expressiveness
and risk-taking in action but for
precision in my students’ embodying
of character? Practically, the
language of intentions could serve
my students well. They are not merely
“walking in the mud” but “trying not
to get stuck” or “helping each other
stay dry,” according to the needs of
the unfolding narrative. As I prepare
my process drama for my work with
my students, I will seek to clarify the
dramatic tension that guides their
actions at each step in the process
and look for opportunities in my
students’ engagement with the story
to deepen their creative work.
Space and place
Francophone theatre education
practitioners also frequently
acknowledge space and place as
essential to the student’s stepping
into dramatic action. Spatial
considerations are present in
process drama tradition as strategy
and foundational theatre form,
but I wonder if Québécois practice
accords more central importance
to this component of the work. “If we
want children to create in theatre,”
says Hélène Beauchamp, they must
“master…not only the discipline of
theatre but also the working space of
their classroom.”
Beauchamp’s model for theatre
learning charts a progression in
improvisations and games by which
learners “explore and understand
the space for themselves,” imagine
and “conceptualize” fictional places,
and make these places “concrete”
through the physical transformation
of the working space. Through this
process, learners grow in autonomy
to create and in willingness to
connect with others. They also have
more resources to engage in their
fictive world.
I see the centrality of space and
place manifested in applied theatre
contexts as well. In her article, “When
Inuit Sculpture Opens Into Stories,”
written in English, Francine Chaîné
offers practices for drama and
theatre-based explorations of a
museum exhibit in which participants
move immediately from establishing
the given circumstances of their role
to exploring where characters are
“located in theatrical space.”