... from Background to Theory

It was as a drama teacher in London in the mid seventies that I first cut my teeth, working for a number of years in two secondary schools that were popularly regarded as 'tough', as well as running a number of classes and drama groups connected with various inner city communities and youth clubs. Here, I acquired a taste for challenging situations, revelling in the success drama could have with young people who seemed to reject much else.

Struggling, both to find meaning in my own life as well as to authenticate my contribution to the real-life lot of those I was working with, what I was learning soon fed into and reinforced insights I was gathering as actor/director of the Stirabout Theatre Company (a company whose remit was to perform theatre in prisons and other closed institutions within a hundred mile radius of the capital). It eventually brought me to a revelatory understanding of the role played by what can be termed 'rapport' as a dual key to unlocking the secrets of both authentic performing art and genuine human relationship and growth. (I later discovered that adherents of Physical Theatre call this concept complicité.)


the view from my house

Storytelling and its extension into modes of dramatic representation, both linear and non-linear, are essentially a response to our human propensity and need to share and exchange experiences as a way of gaining insight into life, and finding meaning. Empathy is what makes this possible; rapport is the matrix in which it operates. By internalising and "trying out" the life experiences of others (be they actual or fictional), and experimenting creatively with provisional sensations, solutions and decisions, we can vicariously explore coming to terms with life's problems and possibilities. In this way it is possible to broaden our vision of who we are, imagine more vividly who we might become, and re-position ourselves, perhaps more positively, within "our own life story" (the story of who we are that we continually spin to ourselves).

Ancient myth and legend contain in symbolic form all the abiding themes of human existence. Narration, dramatic re-enactment and shared performance art, together with the preparatory work associated with these, are all active processes through which our sense of self can be explored, constructed and re-constructed. As we enter into our teen years we typically tend to become self conscious, and the great existential preoccupations begin to kick in. In the context of all the violence, confusion, turbulence and horror, of which at this very sensitive time in our lives we also become more consciously aware, how are we to avoid – not to put too fine a point on it - madness! Perhaps more importantly, how are our children?

Lenny in Machu Picchu