Devising Days
22nd March, 2016 - Posted by Gavin - Comments Off on Devising Days
This week on our blog, Dave talks about the recent time we spent together to begin the devising process for our new play:
The Active Inquiry company members were back together again for three days in early March. We started work on devising our new piece, to be aired as a work in progress at the Spect-Act Community Festival, being held at Out of the Blue on the 21st of May this year. Devising a new piece is a fascinating process in which we start with a blank canvas and slowly form an idea for a topic we want to explore. This time, we chose to start by doing some “newspaper theatre”. This is a technique of Theatre of the Oppressed, devised by Augusto Boal. Several newspapers (tabloids, broadsheets, free) representing a range of political affiliations, were scanned for interesting stories which were ripped out and grouped with other similar stories.
The company then split into three groups, chose one story per group, and devised a short play using one of the eleven techniques of newspaper theatre. The result was three very different pieces on the theme of Justice.
Clearly, justice is a huge topic. We talked about the word itself and asked the question “Is justice just?”. The very idea of justice is highly subjective, depending on one’s viewpoint. One side’s idea of “Justice” can be the other sides idea of oppression, or terrorism.
We look forward to developing this work further. If you have any thoughts about the theme then please post your comments below.
Posted on: March 22, 2016
Filed under: News
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