Entering the World of Words

The workshops in last week's article, looking at single lines, and opening paragraphs, are a good introduction to exploring words. Often, we are given something to read, and we look straight away for the meaning of the text, without a care for its construction. In theatre, community or otherwise, just as we begin to learn not to simply 'look' at objects, places or people, but to observe them more fully and 'see' them, so too must we begin to observe more closely, words.

The following workshops will help the members of your Community Drama group to begin entering the world of words in a fun and easy way, wherever their own main interest lies i.e., acting, set design, stage make up, stage management; since it is vital for further development and future performances that attention to detail is paid.

From this stage of development on, it is good practice for the Drama Worker/Director to encourage the group to help develop themselves by continuing to explore and observe more fully outwith the drama environment, any text they read, sounds they hear, and films and plays they see, with their new found drama 'eye'.

We will investigate all of these aspects more fully in later articles, but for moment, we will concentrate on workshops for entering the world of words.

Fundamentally, the nature of drama is of conflict, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, containing a degree of the emotional. More often than not, the conflict may arise out of circumstances beyond control and/or from the character.

Keeping in mind those elements, we can take a simple sentence and introduce conflict simply be adding one or two descriptive adjectives, and in turn, stimulate the imaginative 'eye'. For Example:-

A man gets into a plane and flies into the sky.

First we focus on the man:-

An angry man gets into a plane and flies into the sky. A sad, old man gets into a plane and flies into the sky. A hurried and anxious man gets into a plane and flies into the sky. A young man etc.

Next, let's look at the plane:-

A man gets into a plane and flies into the sky. " a rusty old plane and flies into the sky. " a shiny new plane and flies into the sky. " a bi-plane and flies into the sky.

Or, we can change our attention to the sky:-

A man gets into a plane and flies into the sky. A man gets into a plane and flies into the dark skarry sky.

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