The Educational Research and Development Programme (ERDP) of the A. M. Qattan Foundation (AMQF) organised two workshops, curated by British playwright and theatre director Chris Cooper. Held over five days (7-11 September 2017), the workshops brought together 50 male and female participants.
Both workshops were premised on Edward Bond’s approach to theatre and drama. This approach effectively invites the imagination, particularly among children. It contributes to building children’s personalities and developing their compassion with others. Bond is one of the most prominent 20th century playwrights in Britain.
In the first workshop, titled Writing for the Stage: Bondian Approach, participants read the opening scene of The Price of One, a play written by Edward Bond and directed by Cooper. The workshop was built on the scene of a woman who walks in the midst ruins and holds her baby. A soldier confronts her and strips her of the only bottle of water she has. She repeatedly says: “Water for my baby”. Carrying his daughter and a rifle, the soldier replies: “You should have taken this into account before you had babies in the time of war”.
The soldier grabs the bottle of water to give it to his daughter. The woman convinces him to share the water with her baby. When he uncovers its face, the soldier finds that the baby is dead.
- He has been dead for days.
- I know.
- Why do you need the water for a dead baby?
- To wash it.
The text was translated by research Kifah Fanni. Having read it, participants discussed the text in groups and identified what bewildered or astonished them in that text. The discussion led participants to understand how to employ visual similes on the stage as well as contradictions between characters and within one character. Man is a dramatic being by nature. He does only live the experience like animals. Rather, he reflects on, reacts to and weaves a story about it.
According to Cooper, children are the greatest philosophers in the world. They always ask “Why?”. When they are old, they forget their need and desire to know the reasons. However, drama contributes to making us more human because it embraces the natural contradiction between the self and the society.
Cooper urged participants to start playwriting about the simplest objects around them. The whole universe might be folded and positioned in familiar and small spaces, with which we deal every day.
Participants asked how a meaning can be transmitted to the audience of the play without using their own interpretations. Cooper said: “I do not think that the playwright originally wants to convey a particular message which everyone understands in the same literal meaning. On the stage, we can use actions, pictures and objects within the logic of the scene. However, we do not have guarantees for a single, particular meaning.”
Participants crystallised the role of the theatre is a public, but safe, space for expression. It is associated with desires and needs. It reflects two opposites of the human mind: joy and pain; that is, comedy and tragedy, which created drama in the first place. On the stage, we imagine reality. The imagined human experience emerges. The difference between the real and the imagined becomes fragile as imagination is part of us. Hence, it is as realistic as we are.
The second workshop, titled Drama and Imagination, centred on Helen, whom Greek kings liked. However, Helen chose one king to be her husband: Menelaus. Then, she fell in love and ran away with Paris to Troy, causing a war that lasted for ten years.
In the drama, Menelaus tries to regain Helen. Since he cannot do this alone, he calls everyone to fight with him. Agamemnon turns redemption of his brother Menelaus’ wife into an issue of honour of the whole nation: “Together, we will defend the honour of Greece.”
The situation becomes complicated when the king has to give his daughter as an offering. Otherwise, wind will not blow, and his ships will not sail to Troy and wage the war. This is what the fortune-teller tells him. In the past, he challenged the holy land and hunted a deer there, infuriating goddess Artemis.
Hence, the man who asks others to give offerings finds himself compelled to be the first to make one. It seems as if he was divided into two different persons: a king and a father, power and weakness. Participants explored the idea of offering, particularly in the final scene of role play, which Cooper conducted with a participating teacher.
The teacher played the role of the king’s daughter, who thinks she will be married. She does not know that her father has set this trick and plot. The father leaves his innocent daughter and retires to his tent. She goes after him, with a loaf of bread in her hand, and gives it to him. The king, somewhat hesitant, takes the loaf, but can hardly chew it, and sheds tears. Bread is like an object loaded with meaning, as if the king eats the flesh of his daughter with each bite of the bread.
Participants discussed how the wife and daughter are transformed into objects, which are used in a deal with the gods. They analysed the idea of honour. Some thought this idea was in the mind of Menelaus alone. He invented and sanctified it and convinced people that they cannot live without it.
At the end of the workshop, Cooper confirmed that drama in a learning context is not a matter of teaching the school curriculum nor teaching performing arts. It centres on man who discovers his humanity. For this reason, drama is not confined to usual happy endings. It allows educators to protect their children inside, rather than from, the world. Cooper gives Little Red Riding Hood as an example. Here, the mother does not protect daughter, Little Red Riding Hood, nor does she describe to her how the wolf looks like at all. She only gives her daughter abstract instructions without any explanation, effectively putting her at risk.