Gavin Bolton's Contextual Drama: The Road Less Travelled

Chapter 1

What Exactly is Contextual Drama?

WHAT EXACTLY IS CONTEXTUAL DRAMA?

Understanding the term ‘contextual drama’ is much easier if one clearly understands the meaning of ‘context’. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (6th edition) defines ‘context’ as: ‘parts that precede or follow a passage and fix its meaning… ambient conditions’ (p. 219). ‘Ambient’, from the same source, meaning ‘surrounding’; i.e. ‘to go round on both sides’ (p. 31). Thus the term ‘contextual drama’ means, ‘that which surrounds’ a particular human condition or state of being. Therefore, exploring and examining the circumstances of ‘particular human conditions’, specifically those which are ‘life changing’ to the people involved, can be considered a worthwhile learning objective for everyone, for as the old adage so rightly reminds us – ‘We are never too old to learn something new.’

Contextual Drama as a Different Form of ‘Theatre’

When considering the use of contextual drama, it is essential that participants and leader alike, understand that they are not working towards producing a formal theatrical presentation, such as the annual play or musical production, for the entertainment of an ‘outside’ audience – an audience outside their group or classroom. Instead, they are engaging in a process of learning, in which they work out of their own knowledge and ideas for their own information, satisfaction and pleasure; satisfying their own curiosity by exploring aspects of real life, within the framework of ‘a drama’. They are in fact players, as well as their own audience, to whatever they themselves create. Therefore, critical assessment is one of the important skills Drama students acquire through this process – in relation to their own work and that of their peers. In this kind of drama, it is through the encouragement of deliberate and thoughtful contemplation – hereinafter commonly referred to as ‘reflection’ – both in the creation and outcome of their efforts, that instinctive learning occurs.

Similar to theatre, the contextual drama approach follows Shakespeare’s claim that ‘theatre holds a mirror up to life’,¹ but it does so in a different way from traditional ‘theatre’. Instead of ‘acting’ in the theatrical sense, participants engage in ‘role-play’, in order to discover something of what it might be like to be someone other than oneself, in a particular imagined real-life situation.

The following five factors distinguish contextual drama from theatre:

1. Using role-play, participants are required to think, speak and behave as if they were temporarily someone other than themselves, within a particular given situation; i.e. a context that has a particular focus and purpose;

2. There is no written script, thus requiring the players to find their own words (and/or actions) to work appropriately in the imaginary real-life situations with which they are engaged;

3. They look at various aspects of real life through a ‘different lens’, or from different points of view, in order to broaden their understanding;

4. They are ‘audience’ to their own personal work in whatever action they take during the creation of their drama; and

5. Together, they collectively reflect on the effectiveness of their own group-work when it is over – not an outside audience.

It is this collective ‘acting as if’ in short interactions, and later reflecting on what has transpired in action, language and meaning with their fellow players (their peers) that makes contextual drama a unique and effective form of teaching and learning. It uses many aspects of real life, and similarly its outcome is often unpredictable, astonishing, yet always rich with learning.

Contextual Drama Means ‘Playing Properly’

Contextual drama is a particular form of drama used as a method of teaching, learning and socializing, in which a group of people – e.g. a class of students of any age, or adults – agree to enter into a particular kind of ‘play’ mode of an imagined real-life situation; i.e. a particular context, which involves participants working in-role as someone other than themselves, and appropriate to that particular situation. Participants ‘in-role’ are required to think, speak and behave as if they really are those people in that particular situation. Why? To be able to discover in a safe way, at least something of what it means to be those people in that situation; and how they (and themselves) might think, feel and react to those circumstances for the purpose of learning and understanding. A simple way to think of role-play as a means of learning, is to recall the make-believe play that very young children delight in using, in order to investigate and discover something of what it is like to be ‘grown up’, someone other than themselves, or even perhaps an ‘animal’, or just someone different for a short period of time. Contextual drama requires a form of ‘play’ which is not unfamiliar to us. Cast your mind back to your own childhood, and how you enjoyed playing out real-life situations with friends; e.g. ‘hospitals (as doctors and nurses)’, ‘mothers and fathers’, ‘hairdressers’, ‘school’, ‘tractor or truck drivers’ or whatever may have interested you at the time. As players, we engaged readily with a different state of being, because it was great fun and we knew it was only ‘make-believe’ – not real life. The rules of the ‘play’ were the same as the real-life situations they represented, and we as players had to agree to ‘play properly’ within the ‘pretend’ situation – the chosen context – so that it would feel like it was ‘real’. Young children enjoy feeling as if they are in charge of their lives – even though they know they are not. By engaging for a short time in-role as an adult, they explore something of what it might be like to be that person – or those people – in that situation, in that place at that time. Playing in this way, we were both players and audience – and pity the child who, in the opinion of his or her fellow players, was ‘not playing properly’ – according to real-life rules.

Contextual Drama as a Viable Way of Teaching and Learning

Regardless of age, this form of make-believe play offers participants a focused approach to humanistic learning in a world which is becoming more and more distanced from the real values of humanity, due to an increased dependence upon electronic communication and media. Contextual drama offers face-to-face social collaboration, as a safe and interesting way of pooling individual knowledge, for the purpose of examining aspects of real life as we perceive them, for relevance and usefulness; or just because they are part and parcel of human existence. Within the context of drama-as-serious-play, participants are able, in practice, to safely consider the implications and consequences of people’s actions – what people think, say and do – without suffering the actual outcomes of such choices in real life. It is not surprising that Gavin Bolton, in search of a name for this new concept of drama as a distinctive learning medium, in his first book Towards a theory of Drama in Education,² simply defined this new medium as ‘Type D Drama – Drama for Understanding’, a form of learning which we now refer to as ‘contextual drama’. It is a way of working which encourages thought in many ways – both inside the framework of the drama, to create it (e.g. Case Study 4 Drunken Robbers – Orpheus), and outside the dramatic frame, in the participants’ reflection on the work with which they have been engaged. The reflective process – the thinking, speaking and considering the ‘pros and cons’ of decisions constantly being made – is innate to this participatory dramatic approach.³

Contextual drama opens up a veritable slough of ideas and opportunities through which participants, regardless of sex, background or ability, can come to a better understanding of the world in which they live. Ours is a society forced daily to deal effectively with a plethora of ‘information’ and constant pressure to make important decisions; so how better to learn to think about the complications and consequences of decisions and actions in real life, than in the ‘no-penalty area’ of drama?⁴

Contextual Drama for Teachers and Social Workers

For either teacher or social worker engaged in collaborative teaching and learning, participants are invited, encouraged and subtly required to share their knowledge – however acquired, electronically or otherwise – speaking with their peers, face-to-face, in imagined ‘real life’ situations (i.e. dramas), in relation to whatever the particular topic with which they are engaged; i.e. the central focus. That is to say, the particular topic on which they are collectively working, as well as its many aspects and various points of view, in a variety of ways, using appropriate interactive drama ‘strategies’.⁵ In so doing, participants are required to listen, think and speak – using language appropriate to whatever imagined contextual situation or drama in which they find themselves; factors that encourage not only face-to-face communication of ideas and language, but also the development of related social skills. Participants are encouraged and required by the person responsible for leading the work, to think in terms of relevance and appropriateness, as well as the implications of what they contribute to the contextual situation. In this way, participants discover a kind of reconnection to human-ness.

I have included nine different drama case studies conducted by Gavin Bolton at the centre of this book to illustrate his approach to contextual drama. In reading them, you will notice that each is composed differently, with its own central focus around which the work revolves – not unlike how the planets circle the sun. If you were to choose any one of these topics to investigate from your group’s collective point of view, a somewhat different drama would result, because your class would contribute their own understandings of what the topic means to them, since they would be supplying the supporting factors according to their view of the topic, as well as their knowledge and experience.

NOTES

1 Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act III, Scene ii: Hamlet’s advice to the players …to hold, as t’were the mirror up to nature.

2 Bolton, G. (1979). Towards a theory of Drama in Education. London: Longman.

3 Working within an inflexible time allowance in a school, a teacher may be pressed for time to immediately reflect on a piece of work, therefore the necessary reflection on what has previously occurred is a logical and essential beginning to the next class. Reflection on work done is an essential part of the process of teaching and learning through drama; it is where participants become consciously aware of what they have learned.

4 ‘Material for Significance’, pp. 128–30. Heathcote, D. (1984). Dorothy Heathcote: Collected writings. L. Johnson & C. O’Neill (eds). London: Hutchinson. For an excellent example of this, see Chapter Four, Part Two, Case Study 7 The Green-Poolers, a drama created by Bolton with adult student-teacher candidates.

5 Two books which offer a broad selection of strategies: Neelands, J., & Goode, T. (1990). Structuring Drama work: A handbook of available forms in Theatre and Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Bolton, G. (1991). Drama strategies: New ideas from London Drama. K. Taylor (ed.). London: Heinemann.

Chapter 2

Why Should I Use Contextual Drama?

ADVANTAGES FOR THE TEACHER AND SOCIAL WORKER

The need to give people, especially young people, the ability to recognize the implications of new ideas – not only about what they see and hear around them, but further afield, as displayed and absorbed through the ever-changing fabric of electronic communication and media – is of the utmost importance to both teachers and social workers. Consequently, contextual drama is the ideal medium needed to create a supportive social environment that enables people to think for themselves; to develop the ability to consider the pros and cons of ideas, their implications, possible consequences and the outcomes of decisions made, as well as allowing them to express their ideas openly, while listening to and considering the ideas of others.

Contextual drama is an essential aspect of Bolton’s dramatic mode; it operates like an invisible and flexible framework to keep the action of a drama firmly focused, while at the same time, allowing plenty of room for in-depth exploration by teacher/leader and students/participants alike. It enables participants to investigate real-life situations, whether past, present or future, within the safety of ‘as-if-it-were-real-life-now’, with all of its implications and/or consequences – as Bolton’s nine dramas in this book so clearly demonstrate.

Spatial Requirements

Since the goal of using contextual drama does not include the production of a formal performance, you will be pleased to learn that no special building or stage is required in order to be effective. You simply need a space somewhere safe, clean, comfortable and reasonably quiet: the latter is very important, because it is difficult when working in drama, to cope with excess noise. The size of the space should be sufficient for your group of people to move around freely, and provide participants access to some basic furniture, such as chairs, and/or wooden blocks big enough to sit or stand on, one table or two, and a lockable cupboard in which to store ‘props’. A chalkboard or whiteboard can be useful, but is not absolutely necessary, as a large roll of paper will suffice. Having acquired these basics, the teacher and group are ready to begin to create a drama. It is worth mentioning that the nine dramas featured in this book took place in a variety of spaces; some were spacious, while others were only just big enough.

In general, the numerous advantages of incorporating contextual drama into your teaching or leading practice include the following:

• To broaden participants’