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Collaborative development in transforming drama text to stage text  

Martin Göthberg, Cecilia Björck & Åsa Mäkitalo

University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Introduction and aim With an interest in the creative and collaborative work achieved in and through theatre education, the overarching aim of this paper is to illuminate how joint understandings are established through social interaction in- and out-of-role, in a student theatre production where the centrality of text is significant. In most theatre productions, stage actors and directors collaboratively transform a drama text into a stage text (or ‘performance’). In rehearsals, actors strive to develop such understanding of situations that will be presented on stage. 

 Theoretical framingAs Sawyer (2015, 253) argues, ‘[e]xplaining theatre creativity requires a sociocultural approach, because the explanation has to be based in the interpersonal dynamics among the actors’. We conceptualize theatre production as a goal oriented and co-creative activity where the presentation of the stage text requires an elaborated joint text understanding.  Mutual understanding of a social situation is always dynamic and underway among participants who engage in a range of communicative projects (Linell 1998) to move the activity forward. Meaning making in such activities is further seen as achieved through the material-semiotic means that become salient in pursuing joint activities in situ as part of cultural practices (Vygotsky 1978; 1999; 2004).

 Empirical case, data and analyses

The empirical material originates from one year of ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an upper secondary school in Sweden where the participants worked with the staging of Molière’s drama The Affected Ladies from 1658 (Göthberg, 2015). For this study, we have drawn on the video data, that provides access to sessions from the first reading of Molière’s text to the final performance. We selected instances of student initiated role-play situations for analysis and scrutinized how joint text understanding was interactively established as communicative projects among the participants by focusing on salient mediational means such as gestures, movements, facial expressions, tone-of-voice and speech.

Towards a stage text: transitions of understandingThe drama text served as a pivot, which provided given circumstances (Stanislavski 2017). However, what was ‘given’ had to be thoroughly negotiated in order to coordinate text understanding that would allow for convincing in-role interaction in the stage text (cf. Bergman Blix 2010). Coordinated ensemble work came about in tangible ways by holding hands, imitating voice, noticing postures, exploring manners, articulating interpretations (often bridging between Molière’s text and contemporary culture), and by doing things with things. In-role and out-of-role interaction was intertwined, and joint understandings emerged in layers of communicative projects. 

Educational significanceWe conclude that the participants in this kind of educational activity put considerable joint effort into making ensemble text understanding more explicit. Another conclusion is that the students have to be very knowledgeable in navigating the extraordinary complexity of intertwined communicative projects. We suggest that drama-text based interaction in-role may provide educational potential in the field of developing text understanding.

References

Bergman Blix, Stina. 2010. Rehearsing Emotions: The Process of Creating a Role for the Stage. Stockholm : Stockholm University. 

Göthberg, Martin. 2015. Pimpa Texten. En etnografisk studie av gymnasieelevers meningsskapande i dramatext. http://hdl.handle.net/2077/41363

John-Steiner, Vera, Cathrene M Connerey and Ana Marjanovic-Shane. 2010. Vygotsky and creativity: a cultural-historical approach to play, meaning making, and the arts. New York: Peter Lang. 

Linell, Per.1998. Approaching dialogue: talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.

Molière and Per Sjöstrand. 1986. De löjliga preciöserna komedi i en akt [The Affected Ladies]. Stockholm: The Royal Dramatic Theatre.

Sawyer, Keith R. 2015. “Drama, theatre and performance creativity.” In Dramatic Interactions in Education: Vygotskian and Sociocultural Approaches to Drama, Education and Research, edited by Susan Davis, Beth Ferholt, Hanna Grainger Clemson, Satu-Mari Jansson and Ana Marjanovic-Shane, 245-260. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Stanislavski, Konstantin Sergeevič. 2017. An Actor's work. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 

Vygotsky, Lev Semenovič. 1978. Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P..

Vygotsky, Lev Semenovič. 1999. On the problem of the psychology of the actor’s creative work. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky (Vol. 6) 237-244. New York, NY: Plenum Press.

Vygotsky, Lev Semenovič. 2004. “Imagination and Creativity in Childhood.” Journal of Russian & East European Psychology 42 (1): 7-97. doi:  10.1080/10610405.2004.11059210