Improvising

Improvisation is an established process across most fields of theatre and is as much part of theatre vocabulary as text, cues or projection. Improvisation is a means of theatre-making that might include dance, mime, music or visual abstractions. By the 1960s, it had also become a visible dramatic activity in training teachers, health workers, professionals in the Criminal Justice System and business management. The major benefits revolved around communication, relationships and spontaneity ‘first, the spontaneous response to the unfolding of an unexpected situation: and secondly, employing this in controlled conditions to gain insight into problems presented’ (Hodgson and Richards, 1966: 3).

It is evident that directors use improvisation for many purposes (O’Neill, 1995: 8). It is a process of deepening, exploring or creating context. It also represents a stringent part of actor-training for warm-up, community building and developing trust and self-awareness. As applications of theatre practices have grown during the twentieth century, improvisation is commonly used by directors to ‘give life’ to issues identified in the devising process. In other words, improvisation creates theatre to fulfil intentions.

For example, in a participatory theatre piece on the Kinder transport, the devising process led to the company decision that a series of short scenes showing how the Nazi’s imposed progressive restrictions on Jewish children in 1939 Germany should be shown: restrictions on owning pets; prohibited from attending sports centres; forced to wear the Yellow Star of David. These three scenes were improvised many times to ensure authenticity and accuracy but, more significantly, to create the desired actor-audience relationship in terms of a questioning, critical response. The actor-teachers needed to discover the most appropriate attitudes, signals and emphasis to illuminate the horror in an age-specific way.

The relationship between improvisation and devising does not always follow the format I am proposing. It is suggested, however, that a) devising establishes the intentions, boundaries and structure and b) improvisation tends to explore given text, develop character, create and interrogate relationships, establish social contexts and examining productive tensions. It is also common for improvisation to be the strategy to examine how participation might be received and developed.

Devised and improvised theatre, whether text-based or not, enables directors to examine and create contexts that are directly relevant to participant need. The practices remain at the centre of applied theatre process because they facilitate company strengths to be developed, company members to create theatre and companies to develop the flexibility to be responsive in contexts which are more familiar to the audience–participants.

2.16 Chapter summary

The literature search has indicated issues which warrant further analysis through the case studies, such as a precise observation of techniques and processes, which have traditionally proved difficult to access (Schevtsova, 2012). In the broader context of applied theatre interventions, the role of the director and their working processes would benefit from a re-definition which locates their practice within an evolving conceptual framework. Interestingly, a similar claim is made for research into the actual practice of individual applied theatre practitioners (Hughes and Ruding, 2009). The diversity and combinations of artistic forms suggest that an alternative, hybrid directorial role might be articulated within the applied theatre canon; traditional definitions have not always included contemporary participative practice (Schechner, 1988: 146). There are continued claims to affirm theatre’s social purpose and to reconnect it with its original community role, which can be seen as predominantly ‘popular and oppositional’ (Neelands, 1995: 1).

The analysis of Flight Paths indicates certain directorial principles in community theatre interventions. The principles are as much part of an ever-changing social context as the interventions themselves are. The need for clarity with regard to intention and the kind of knowledge being facilitated continues; the identification of a ‘critically reflective mindset’ may well facilitate that clarity. How directors facilitate such a

During six years living in Hong Kong and another four years visiting Hong Kong University, I witnessed an array of community theatre work.

The theatre reflected a naïve directorial sense of message-giving and statement-making. The theatre community had not yet explored such

political and social concepts as critical spectator, audience specific theatre, participation.

mindset and accommodate resulting responses will be part of the fieldwork.

The significance of how people learn and develop knowledge and understanding through participation has been evident in the literature. However, the director role in planning participation requires further interrogation. Similarly, the significance of ‘devising’ and ‘improvising’ as part of the directors’ repertoire requires more detailed analysis. It is suggested that participation has the potential to create a unique aesthetic, which results from the dynamics and responses of interaction. This is particularly evident in participation that is informed by theories of Brecht and DiE practitioners Bolton, Heathcote, O’Neill and Neelands.

The applied theatre director is seen as part of an historic and political tradition of British community based theatre which grew from The Worker’s Theatre Movement, before reaching fruition in the early sixties. It appears that in the current context of rapid social change, the time may be right to articulate a framework of directorial intervention which reflects the identities of applied theatre at this early stage of a new millennium.