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THEATRE IN EDUCATION
Chris Hastings,
Theatre as a tool for education is misused, misunderstood and ineffectual. This may be a sweeping statement, but it is one that is
founded on truth.
Theatre, as a general rule, can be split into two categories - entertainment and education. In the prejudiced world of performing arts, Theatre in Education (TIE) is considered the black sheep of the acting family tree. It is what actors do when they are unemployed.
What graduates do if they can find nothing else. What less accomplished actors spend the rest of their professional careerS doing. What school children are forced to watch, twitching and fidgeting like flies caught in a web, until their boredom is assuaged by the lunch-time bell.
The crime that has been perpetrated on the world of TIE for decades is that it is split from what should be its first cousin, entertainment.
Educational theatre can function in two ways. It can inform or it can affect. The former results in the audience walking away having learnt much, but having assimilated little. For younger audiences the only lesson they invariably learn is that theatre is boring - thus the decline in younger audiences. Whether the subject is poetry, bullying, drugs or crossing the road, the objective is the impartment of knowledge and understanding. Educational theatre is failing. Just look at the statistics in any of these areas and you will agree. Lack of interest in literature, high levels of bullying and drug use, road deaths. The list continues.
To truly have an impact, to really make a change and to make an audience listen, a performance must affect, entertain and stimulate. If the
performance - and the writing - fails to address any of these areas the result is the same ineffective TIE that already fills our schools.
Last year I was involved in the founding of HRH Productions. This is an English repertory theatre company with an elite pool of professionally trained actors, chosen for their talent, motivation and dedication. Actors whose raison d'etre is to produce quality theatre.
HRH Productions are based at The Royal George Theatre in London and our Mission Statement sums up what we are trying to achieve in the world of
educational theatre: It will change the way you think. It will change the way you feel. But most importantly, it will change the way you act.
Our shows have been met with widespread acclaim and enthusiasm and none
of those who witness them can fail to be both moved and affected by
their content.
"A joy."
All of our work is intended to impart knowledge as well as provide stimulating entertainment.
HRH Productions' most recent venture was to commission a new play, Children, which examines the effects of domestic violence on the young.
Statistics suggest that children are present in 79% of domestic violence cases; an unsettling statistic which only serves to emphasise the danger to our young. This production adheres to HRH Productions' ideal of stimulating and entertaining educational theatre, whilst also teaching our young that domestic abuse is not acceptable.
The play succeeds on a number of levels: Its clever combination of naturalism and a near poetic quality, of pathos and humour, its
examination of the human spirit, of courage, of the extremities of human relationships, of tolerance and endurance, of man at his worst and at his best, of friendship and trust, of the loss of youth and innocence and the irrevocable effects of violence in the home. The end result is like no theatre you have known. A play that moves its audience from roars of laughter, to tears of sorrow.
Siblings Joe and Angela are the 'survivors' of domestic violence. Both they and their mother were subjected to the torture of their father's
physical, emotional and psychological abuse.
After fourteen years these siblings are reunited and are forced to confront the truths of the past; Joe unable or unwilling to even recall
his father's violence; Angela aware that her entire life has been shaped by past events.
The play attempts to shatter our misconceptions and dust away the stereotypes that pervade this often-taboo subject. Angela is living with an ostensibly violent husband, the loud-mouthed and belligerent Frank. Joe has become a shy and quiet loner, in need of the affection of which he was starved as a child. But which is the abuser and which the abused?
After two years of research, workshopping, writing and rewriting, Children was completed, focusing on the subject of domestic violence and
abuse in a format which is both theatrically stimulating, whilst remaining hard-hitting and thought-provoking.
As the author of Children, my intention was to create something at once poetic and grittily real. I did not want to write a script that said 'Stop and listen to what I have to say. You must change the way you think and the way you live'. Worthy theatre is invariably dull. It makes us blasé and uncaring. I want people to come and see a great piece of theatre and to walk away sated, without the sense of having
attended a sermon. I have only once experienced the true power of theatre. The play finished and there was silence. Not the silence of
failure, but the sound of shock, a crescendo of realisation and guilt. No one wanted to break that moment; a wonderful instant of shared
feeling and knowledge. Nothing needed to be said. We had been entertained, had been enthralled by the spectacle before us and it was
only when the play finished and some time later I was going about my daily life that the play's truth hit me. This is Children's objective.
When asked for words that have touched them, that have changed them, people most frequently choose the words of a song. This is because the
fundamental objective of music is to entertain, to move, to affect. As grotesque as the subject matter may be, people should enjoy this play.
Only then can it sing out and only then might the words affect people.
Excerpt from the play
The play opens with a young boy's voice, reading a poem. In the distance there is the sound of children playing in a schoolyard, their taunting chants underscoring the child's voice:
I am only small, but it is my fault. He never used to hit me. He should have hit me. Sometimes he smiles. He buys me ice cream. He bought me a Playstation. He brushes my hair. Sometimes. I hug Ben close in the night. I bury my face in his worn fur. I hold on tight. I have a pain in my tummy. The screaming always gives me a pain in my tummy. I love my mum. I love her, even though she never bought me a Playstation, and I asked every single day for weeks and weeks. I know
it's her screaming, even though in the morning she always tells me I had a bad dream. I do have bad dreams, but I know my dreams. (Whisper) Ben, I don't love my dad. Maybe I hate him. I can't do my reading anymore. All the words join up and I can't separate them. Sometimes, it's so quiet in our house, I can hear my heart beating and it makes me scared. We are all here, but there is no sound. I am afraid Ben. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of the light. Afraid of going to sleep. Afraid of the other boys at school. Afraid of the teacher. Afraid of the park. I'm just afraid Ben. (Whisper) My dad hits my mum Ben. I know he does. I have seen him do it. I hide. I know it's because I'm crap at football you know, and because I've forgotten all my spellings. My mum cries a lot. I try to make things better. I try so hard to learn my spellings, but I just keep forgetting them. I put my arms around my mum's neck and I hug her tight. Sometimes, she is only small too.
Children is yet to be produced for the public, but a performed reading was presented to an invited audience.
Company Director of
HRH Productions and
Artistic Director of the Royal George Theatre
"Superb.
"Excellent."
"Great actors… well-judged and impressive performances."
"This wonderful play touched me on so many levels."
"The resonance and beauty and heartache will remain with me for some time to come."
