Dramatic happenings

I think I'm losing my touch.

Let me explain that statement a little better. For those of you that don't know me I'm normally fairly quick witted and observant of what is going on around me however today (technically yesterday but i haven't gone to bed yet) the ability to see a situation for what it really is completely abandoned me.

You see on the advice of my Performing Arts teacher I spent some time over the weekend (admittedly not a huge amount) reading about Augustus Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed. She believed it would be relevant to a forth coming project of mine and she had mentioned that she would be running a workshop on it on Monday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Theatre of the Oppressed I will summarise it in an almost insultingly simple way. Basically Boal believed that the audience should be put in a situation that causes them or people to be oppressed in a way that causes them to react and either stand up for those around them or take no action at all, thereby realising something about themselves. Basically he would put people in really awkward and sometimes harrowing situations without people realising it was all an act and not real. (This is know as Invisible Theatre)

Anyway when it came to my performing arts lesson on Monday I assumed that this is what we would be working on and had even mentioned it to my dad who has a great deal of experience with theatre. This, however, was not the case. I arrived to the lesson with an extremely agitated and almost irate teacher who was determined that we were going to work on the use of puppetry theatre and given the nature of her mood pushed Boal completely out of my mind. The reason, as it appeared at the time, that my teacher was so angry was that apparently the quality of some of our recent work had been below standard and she was, understandably, frustrated with the class.

It wasn't long before a friend of mine decided that she was not going to take part in the lesson. Now this is not uncommon in our class and often our teacher is quite understanding if we don't feel comfortable with what we're doing or just simply are having one of those days where we hinder the lesson more than help it. Soon after another friend of mine turned up late, which is also not uncommon for him. My teacher then proceeded to pull them aside and tell them both off out of earshot from the rest of us which seemed to irritate the both of greatly.

For the rest of the lesson my teacher grew more and more frustrated with them and the rest of the class, aiming snide remarks about their behaviour directly at them, threatening to kick them off the course and altogether treating them like small naughty children rather the young adults that they are. My two friends where not making the situation much better for themselves either. They refused to participate, stormed out of the theatre, threw things, banged chairs and just generally acted like toddlers who haven't had their daily nap.

This behaviour would seem generally unacceptable but at the time and given the ferocious nature of our teacher the class seemed at a consensus that our teacher was in the wrong and on the numerous occasions when she stormed out the theatre after the two to tell them off we would gather and bitch.

Yes we were bitches. Men and women alike.

As far as we were concerned our teacher was completely out of line, our lesson was being disrupted and we were considering storming out as well. However out teacher would often return to class, catch us bitching and not doing work and then yell at us. As if it were an instinctual reaction we would obey, not daring to challenge the authority of teacher half a foot shorter than most of us. We all felt powerless while she was in the room and it was only when she left that we gained any form of confidence only to have it ripped away from us every time she re-entered the theatre.

It was not until the end of the lesson that the teacher asked our two friends to come and sit down and then asked us all to give them a round of applause for their Invisible Theatre performance. After a few seconds of shocked and blank looks towards each other we all felt felt a few moments of relief that it had all been fake. This did not last long unfortunately as we were soon all ashamed. We had failed to stand up for our friends even though we all clearly believed that our teacher was being too harsh and we had all been so quick to ridicule our teacher over the situation.

I however was ashamed as well as kicking myself. Less than an hour earlier I had been thinking about exactly the kind of thing that had just happened around me and I had not even noticed it. I normally take pride in myself for seeing the world as it really is and yet in that lesson I had not even noticed a thing. I would like to think that maybe it was the fear of the situation that put me out but really I know I was just generally an idiot.

I feel bad that I didn't notice it and even worse that when I thought it was real I did nothing to stop it, however that was easily the best lesson I have ever had in my life. It reminded me of the thing I love most about theatre and acting. It has so much power. Theatre (much like music which I'll talk about another day) has the power to challenge people's perspective of the world. It can create emotions and reactions in people that even they didn't know they could experience. Without theatre I think I would genuinely hate my life......or at least be very dissatisfied with it.

Anyway now that its like nearly 1am and I've finished my this blog (or should I say extended essay) I am going to go to bed!

Thank-you to those of you that actually read this all the way through and to those of you who didn't...........I don't blame you!

Till next time.....