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The Participation Plays of Brian Way:
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THE PARTICIPATION PLAYS OF BRIAN WAY:
AN EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF
PARTICIPATION TECHNIQUES ON THEMATIC MATERIAL
By

Jean Krafka Wolski

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Theatre

1 994

ABSTRACT

THE PARTICIPATION PLAYS OF BRIAN WAY:
AN EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF
PARTICIPATION TECHNIQUES ON THEMATIC MATERIAL

By

Jean Krafka W olski

It has long been acknowledged that Brian Way is a pioneer in the area of
Audience Participation in Theatre for Young People. When he began his first
children's theatre company in 1943, he had only his observations as an actor
and stage manager on tour with the Old Vic Company upon which to draw.
His experiments with the Future Theatre, as this early company was called,
led to the development of a style marked by integrated participation
throughout the performance. Over the next thirty-five years, first with the
West Country Children's Theatre and finally with the Theatre Centre in
London, Way established himself as a leader in the field of Creative
Dramatics through his workshops with teachers and students held in Europe
and North America and also through the publication of his book,
Development Through Drama. He also emerged as a significant contributor
to the field of dramatic literature with the publication of over thirty plays for
young audiences.

While much has been written both by and about Brian Way and his work
in Creative Drama, his work as a playwright has remained largely

unexamined. Even in his own text on Children's theatre, Audience

Participation: Theatre for Young People, the focus is on performance, staging,
and coping with audience response rather than on the literary aspects of his
work. This work proposes to examine Brian Way's contributions as a
playwright, focusing on his plays written specifically for the school audience.
The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the literary merits of the
plays through an analysis of the themes and dramatic devices presented, and
to examine the use and impact of participation techniques upon the basic
storyline. Way's published plays and texts will be examined directly,
supplemented with material gathered in classes and workshops conducted by
Way, personal interviews and observations of performances of Way's scripts.

Analysis of the plays revealed that while Way does attempt to avoid any
political agenda in his plays, there is a certain philosophy present, inspired
undoubtedly by his pacifism. Of the twenty-four plays discussed, eight
contain some reference to war, rebellion or the military. In all of the plays,
there is an eventual coming to terms with the situations presented and a
forgiveness of one's enemies.

One other motif that dominates Way's work is the respect for the
individual and the acknowledgment of each individual's worth in society. In
the lower elementary plays, this is often suggested by the very nature of the
protagonists who appear simple and child-like. In the upper elementary
plays, the audience is provided with the opportunity to have a say in the
outcome of the piece.

In examining participation, Way is perhaps most successful in
incorporating his techniques with the lower and middle age range of
elementary students. With the more experimental participation in the upper
elementary plays, there appears to be a need for an extended time period to

allow the students the opportunity to experiment and feel comfortable with

the activity.

Way's plays demonstrate a thorough knowledge of children and theatre,
based on his observations and experimentation over the years. Further
studies of audience reactions to these plays could prove beneficial to others

interested in writing participatory plays for children.

Copyright by

JEAN KRAFKA WOLSKI

1 994

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to my committee, Dr. Jon Baisch, Dr.
Dixie Durr and Professor Frank Rutledge, for their interest and support in the
completion of this dissertation. I would especially like to thank my advisor,
Dr. John Baldwin, for his constant encouragement and support throughout
the duration of this project. His humour and wisdom proved inspirational.

On a personal note, I would like to express my warm gratitude to my
family, particularly to my parents, Luke and Kay Krafka, who always
encouraged us to pursue our interests and goals. My last words of affection
and thanks are reserved for my husband, David Wolski, whose love and
support were and are endless. Please accept my loving appreciation for your

time and patience.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1
11. History of Brian Way's

Participation Theatre .......................................................................... 10
HI. Participation Plays for

Lower Elementary Students .............................................................. 25
1V. Participation Plays for

Upper Elementary Students .............................................................. 41
V. Trilogy Plays on a Single Theme

for Elementary Students .................................................................... 71
VI. Participation Plays for

Secondary School Students ............................................................. 127
VII. Summary of Major Findings and

Recommendations for Further Study ........................................... 153

Bibliography ........................................................................................ 164

Vii

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

It has long been acknowledged that Brian Way is a pioneer in the area of
Participatory Theatre for Young People. When he started his first children's
theatre company in 1943, he had only his observations as an actor and stage
manager on tour with the Old Vic Company upon which to draw. His
experiments with the Future Theatre, as this early company was called, led to
the development of a style marked by integrated participation throughout the
performance. Over the next thirty-five years, first with the West Country
Children's Theatre and finally with the Theatre Centre in London, Way
would establish himself as a leader in the field of Creative Dramatics through
his workshops with teachers and students held in Europe and North America
and also through the publicationof his book, Development Through Drama.
He would also emerge as a significant contributor to the field of dramatic
literature with the publication of over thirty plays for young audiences.

While much has been written both by and about Brian Way and his work
in Creative Drama, his work as a playwright has remained largely
unexamined. Even in his own text on children's theatre, Audience
Participation: Theatre for Young People, the focus is on performance, staging,
and coping with audience response rather than on the literary aspects of his
work This work proposes to examine Brian Way's contributions as a
playwright, focusing on his plays written specifically for the school audience.

The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the merits of the plays

through an analysis of the themes and dramatic devices presented, and to
examine the use and impact of participation techniques upon the basic
storyline. Way's published plays and texts will be examined directly,
supplemented with material gathered in classes and workshops conducted by
Way, personal interviews and observations of performances of Way's scripts.
A preliminary search for information revealed no published analysis of
Way's scripts and no dissertations on the subject were discovered in a
computer search of Dissertation Abstracts International nor in
Comprehensive Dissertation Index.

Much of the material for this study can be derived through a direct
examination of the plays themselves. The approach used in this study is to
first divide Mr. Way's published plays into four categories: participation plays
for lower elementary students, participation plays for upper elementary
students, trilogy plays on a single theme for elementary students, and
participation plays for secondary school students, and then compare and
contrast the works within each given group in terms of dramatic structure,
character development, plot development, incorporation of participation
techniques, suitability to age groups, and overall theme. The plays will be
examined chronologically within each of the four sections. Because the plays
were almost all published simultaneously in this country, production dates
will be used to determine order. In addition to Way's own writings, a
dissertation by Ronald D. Wood covering the history of the Theatre Centre
has proved to be a valuable resource.

Many of the plays, particularly for the youngest age group, are based on a
fairy tale format, incorporating the use of "magic" as an impetus for
participation. It is not the purpose of this dissertation to debate the
importance of the fairy tale in theatrical literature for children, but precedence

for this idea may be found in child psychologist Dr. Bruno Bettelheim's work,
The Uses of Enchantment.

In addition to the twenty-four scripts covered in this study, Way has
published eight additional full-length scripts for family audiences. Four of

these, Pinocchip, The Storytellers, The Sleeping Beaugj, and Puss in Boots

 

contain scripted instances of participation. Way devotes a great deal of time
to the discussion of these four plays in his text, Audience Participation:
Theatre for Young People. Because Way has already written on these early
plays himself and because he eventually maintained that the mixture of
adults and children in the audience was not conducive to meaningful
participation and therefore ceased to write participation plays for family
audiences, (Wood 154; Interview) these four plays will not be included as part
of this study. The remaining four scripts, The Christmas Cart; Oliver Twist,
The Three Musketeers, and Treasure Island are intended to be presented as
straight dramatic pieces without participation and therefore will also not be
included in this study.

A valuable source of information are notes taken from workshop courses
in creative dramatics and participatory children's theatre conducted at the
University of Iowa in 1978-79 that I attended, and more recently, a series of
interviews with Brian Way concerning his work. Interviews were audio tape
recorded and transcribed when conditions permitted. The interviewing

methodology and techniques implemented can be found in Interviewing:

 

Strategy, Techniques, and Tactics by Raymond L. Gordon.

A third source of information consists of my subjective observations of a
number of participation plays in performance, either written by Way or
modeled after his work. The first two plays were Way's The Mirrorman and

On Trial directed by Way himself and toured to elementary school students in

the Iowa City area during the spring of 1979. These presentations evolved
from a workshop course conducted by Way while at the University of Iowa
and of which I was fortunate to be a part. I have since directed three of Mr.
Way's plays, (Pinocchio, The Mirrorman and On Trial) all based on his

 

recommendation, and developed and toured three additional plays modeled
after Way's works and incorporating his participation techniques.
Observations of these performances are made from my perspective, but do
not include critical analysis of the performances or quantitative studies of
audience reactions to the performances, both of which are beyond the scope of
this study.

Several terms used throughout this dissertation are taken directly from
Brian Way's own writings and interviews. Because his background in
children's theatre was based in England, it is perhaps beneficial to clarify these
terms in order to avoid any confusion. The first of these is "theatre for
children," which can also be referred to as children's theatre or theatre for
young people. While there are some organizations that use these terms to
refer to children performing for other children, Way uses them to indicate
performances by adult actors for audiences of children or teenagers.

Another important term closely connected to any study of Brian Way is
"creative dramatics," also referred to as "creative drama," "playmaking," and
in England as simply "drama." The following definition was accepted by the
Children's Theatre Association of America, now the American Alliance for
Theatre and Education, in 1977 and effectively sums up Way's definition of

the term:

Creative drama is an improvisational, non-exhibitional,
process-centered form of drama in which participants are
guided by a leader to imagine, enact, and reflect upon
human experiences. Although creative drama

5

traditionally has been thought of in relation to children
and young people, the process is appropriate to all ages
(McCaslin, Creative Drama 5).

While Way incorporates many aspects of creative drama within his plays for
children, it should be noted that the focus of creative drama is on the process
and the development of the individual, whereas children's theatre ultimately
presents a product aimed at communication between actor and audience.

The terms "participation play" or "participatory play" refer to the form of
drama originally developed in England by Brian Way (Faulkes, "Audience
Participation" 36). Pat Hale in his text on participation theatre differentiates
between creative dramatics and the participatory play. According to Hale,
participatory theatre,

...involves a play, a total aesthetic experience with a
structure and thematic content shaped by artistic
consciousness. The goal of creative dramatics is to bring a
play out of a group of children, to have them create their '
own scenes from their own experiences. The goal of
participatory theatre is to bring children into a play, one
shaped by a playwright, and give them a vital part, under the
guidance of skilled performers, in fulfilling his design (1).

Way further divides participation into three types: spontaneous,
stimulated and directed. Spontaneous participation is emotional and
triggered by physical circumstances presented in the play. Way likens this
primitive type of participation to a natural urge to call out a warning to
someone in imminent danger. Since young children have yet to learn adult
rules for the theatre, they may very often call out warnings or advice to the
actors as a means of sincere help. While Way does not deliberately write such
moments into his scripts, he nevertheless advises actors to be aware that
spontaneous participation may occur and in his text on audience
participation, suggests means of utilizing such participation (27-29).

Stimulated participation is brought about by a direct contact between actor

and audience in which an activity is suggested to the audience, allowing them
to participate if they so desire. The participation is suggested by the actions of
the characters. There is generally no urgency to the situation, allowing the
audience the choice of either taking part or simply watching the action. In
fldience Participation: Theatre for Young People, Way cites as an example
the closing of the first act and the opening of the second act of Pinocchio (30-
31). After having experienced several adventures in the first act, Pinocchio
and Gepetto get ready for bed. Gepetto, who has established a strong bond
with the audience, suggests that they might want to go to sleep as well,
assuring them that he will wake them in the morning. Gepetto and
Pinocchio then drop off to sleep in full view of the audience, remaining
onstage throughout the intermission. Way indicates, and this was my
experience as well, that as the children return to their seats at the end of the
intermission, many will curl up in their seats and "go to sleep," waiting for
Gepetto to wake them, which he does at the beginning of Act II. This is
followed immediately by another instance of stimulated participation with
Pinocchio learning how to wash up and brush his teeth, with the children
joining in if they so desire. No attempt is made to demonstrate activities nor
are any value judgements made as to the quality of the participation
(Pinocchio 36—37).

Directed participation is concerned with a particular need within the play
that requires the assistance of the audience. In such cases there is an urgency
that evolves naturally from the circumstances of the plot. Way feels that it is
important to clearly explain what is required of the audience and then trust
that the participation will come. As in stimulated participation, no attempt is
made to demonstrate activities and no value judgements are made

(Audience Participation 33).

Stimulated and directed participation may be utilized for either whole or
small group involvement. Whole group participation has the entire audience
working at one and the same time. Depending upon the age group, they may
or may not all be involved in precisely the same activity. Small group
participation is generally found in plays for older students and involves a few
audience members in an activity while others watch. In some cases, Way
combines these two types of participation, pulling a small group into an
activity centered in the acting area while the rest of the audience is involved
in an activity that aids the cast and small group volunteers.

Two other terms that appear frequently in this dissertation and are used by
Way in his notes on his work are "control device" and "absorption." Quite
simply, a control device is a means for the actor to begin and end an instance
of participation. This may be achieved through the use of an external device,
such as a cymbal or whistle, or may simply be incorporated into the dialogue,
relying upon the establishment of trust between the audience and the actor
and, to a certain measure, the actor's authority within a given situation. In
order to achieve this authority, Way often refers to the importance of
"absorption" on the part of the actors. This term first appears in Peter Slade's
Child Drama, and the definition given in that text is similar to Way's.
Basically, Slade defines absorption as an intense form of concentration where
the actor is completely wrapped up in an activity, to the exclusion of all other
thoughts, including the awareness and/ or desire for an audience (Slade 35-
36). Way repeatedly emphasizes in his notes on his work that if the actor
remains absorbed in an activity, the audience will follow suit. Way does
allow for some awareness of the audience, since the actor must sense
when the audience's absorption is beginning to wane in order to move on to

the next activity.

In terms of staging the plays intended for school audiences, Way uses the
term "open stage" to refer to the shape he utilizes in his type of theatre
performance. For the elementary school plays, "open stage" refers to "arena
theatre" or "theatre in the round," although some of the pieces work best in a
"thrust" arrangement. In his experience, Way has found that children
respond more readily if the action is brought out of the proscenium and into
the audience. For this reason, he prefers to stage his works in an open area
with the children seated on the floor around the action. For the secondary
schools, the same configuration can be utilized, or if the school has bleacher
seating, the audience can be situated on two sides of the acting area with the
performance in the center. The important aspect of all these arrangements is
the close proximity of the actors to the audience.

In his later plays, Way developed an interest in incorporating other art
forms into his plays. While the work with the visual arts was limited to
primitive mask-making, reference is made in his notes to the work of Carl
Orff in music. While it is beyond the scope of this dissertation to explore the
merits of Orff's music programs, a brief discussion of the nature of his work
may clarify some of Way's intentions within his scripts. The foundation for
much of Orff's work may be found in the work of the Swiss teacher and
theorist, Emile Jacques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) who developed eurhythmics, a
system of teaching music which encouraged the involvement of the whole
body in experiencing rhythmic movement. Orff, a German composer, first
experimented in working with children for a series of radio programs in 1948,
culminating in the publication of his experiences in Schulwerk. Orff's
approach to teaching children is based upon rhythmic speech patterns and
body movements. Speech patterns are transferred to a series of specially

designed instruments, which include the glockenspiel, xylophone, hand

drums, tambourines, rhythm sticks, cymbals, triangles, cluster bells and
recorders. Melody is presented first in a simple descending pattern from "sol"
to 'mi'," expanding to a pentatonic scale and then to the major and minor
scales. Musical form is taught through the use of speech, instruments and
movement. Harmony is explored through singing and playing in instrument
ensembles. Orff also explores the nature of timbre and dynamics through
speech, body sounds such as clapping and stamping and through the use of
the Orff instruments. The emphasis in Orff's work is on improvisation and
creativity, both by the individual and within the group (Land and Vaughn
113-115). The improvisational nature of the work lends itself to inclusion in
Way's plays.

The chapters that follow include a brief history of Way's life and work in
England, laying the groundwork for his theories in participation theatre. This
is followed by an examination of the scripts themselves, beginning with the
plays for lower elementary students and followed by chapters on the plays for
upper elementary students, the trilogy plays on a single theme and finally the
plays for secondary students. The final chapter of this dissertation attempts to
summarize the progression of Way's work both in theme and development

of participation techniques and makes recommendations for further study.

CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF BRIAN WAY'S PARTICIPATION THEATRE

Brian Way’s theories and style of participational theatre for young
audiences developed over years of personal observation and experience, first
through his work with Tyrone Guthrie and later with his own companies. If
one is to fully understand the thematic material and the philosophy behind
the use of participation, one must first examine the history of the man
himself.

Brian Way was born in 1923 in Norbury, England (International Authors

 

756) and moved to Brighton as a young boy where he attended boarding
school. Way's interests at the time were centered around the sport of cricket
and his desire to be a writer, rather than in the theatre. He did, however,
often write skits for his classmates for the Christmas charades at school
(Wood 12-13).

Way left school in 1939 when he was sixteen and took a job working for the
Daily Sketch, a London newspaper as a tapeboy, tearing off incoming news
releases from a tickertape machine, sorting the items and delivering the
articles to the appropriate editor. Needless to say, this position did not allow
much of a creative outlet, so Way became involved in amateur theatricals as
a major hobby. His success in these theatricals caught the attention of Miss
Elsmith Grant, the film and theatre critic for the Daily Sketch. She introduced
Way to Tyrone Guthrie who was then the Artistic Director at the Old Vic. As

a result of the introduction, Way was appointed assistant stage manager at the

10

11

Old Vic by the time he was seventeen (Wood 14; Interview).

While working in this capacity with the Old Vic, Way was exposed not
only to the techniques of top notch actors and directors, but also experienced
the rigors of touring. From 1940-42, Way was involved in tours to numerous
villages and towns throughout England and Scotland. As a junior member of
the company, his tasks included playing small parts, assisting with all aspects
of stage managing and prompting. One 'aspect of touring that was to be a
major influence on his life was the school matinee performance. The
company presented two matinees per week, generally on Wednesday and
Sunday, with the mid-week performance held exclusively for school groups.
Way recalls that during the first year of the tour the number in attendance
could range from four or five hundred upwards to two thousand, with the
students outnumbering the teachers or other supervising adults by
approximately fifty to one. In addition to this, the ages ranged from the
youngest elementary students of five or six years old up to seventeen or
eighteen years of age. As prompter, Way was in a unique position to observe

the reactions of the audience.

The house-lights would go out to a tremendous pent-up
roar....The roar would change to laughter as soon as the
youngsters saw actors dressed in Elizabethan costume, but
as the dialogue started there would come a hopeful
silence. Sadly this was short lived, and momentum of
private conversation, observation and comment would
soon begin to spread through the audience. The entrance
of a new character generally brought another few
moments' hiatus, but the end of the scene was usually
greeted with cheering, booing, cat- calling, and the first
hesitant throwing of missiles (Audience Participation 5).

 

Fortunately, the managers and directors of the Old Vic took steps over the

next two seasons to present a different program to the elementary students

12

and confine the Shakespeare performances to the secondary school students.
Again, Way was able to observe from his vantage point as prompter, and
occasionally was allowed to sit with the audience, where he first formulated
his thoughts about presenting plays to children. His observations were as

follows:

1. The deepest and most sustained interest came from
those sitting closest to the stage....Interest was also affected
by when the actors were well down stage, thus "front
cloth" scenes often held more attention than centrally
staged scenes, even though the latter were pictorially
more interesting. Indeed, it often seemed clear that the
less distraction there was in the way of scenery the more
interest the youngsters took in the actors themselves...

2. The inter-action of older age groups to younger age
groups was most marked. For seniors to be present at the
same performance as 8—11's was clearly infra dig....

3. Much of the overexcitement before the start of a
performance arose from the fact that the journey to the
theatre, with its many accompanying sidelines, was an
adventure in its own right, often creating more interest
and delight than the fare at the theatre itself, leading to
some disappointment and frustration, and a consequent
looking forward to the return journey....

4. No matter what program material was tried, the age
range was too wide and the numbers too great.

5. Much of every performance included a continuous
babble of chatter from the audience, ...often happening in
parallel and often based on a kind of social helpfulness
where some would try to help their friends catch up on
what had been happening while those friends had been
trying to help someone else....

6. Among those closest to the action, within the few front
rows, some of their chatter took a quite different form,
however, including various things said directly to the
actors on stage. What they said was often sincere, indeed
sometimes even desperately anxious, and much was

13

meant as quite genuine advice based on their
foreknowledge of what was to come... (Audience
Participation 5-8).

1942 proved to be an important year for Way, not only because of the
observations he had made, but also because he was called for National
Service. As an absolutist consciencious objector, he felt he had no choice but
to refuse to participate in the war effort and subsequently was sentenced to
nine months in Her Majesty's Prison. His incarceration provided him with a
period of self searching that culminated in the belief that his calling was to
work in theatre for children (Wood 17; Interview). Tyrone Guthrie had
assured Way that he would still have a position with the company after
serving his sentence, so in the Fall of 1943, he rejoined the Old Vic on tour,
and with two other actors from the company, tested his theories concerning
children's theatre through the formation of the Future Theatre.

The work of this experimental company was made possible first because of
the association with the Old Vic and later because of the word—of-mouth
reputation for quality that passed from school to school. The group relied
heavily upon improvisation, with programs composed of short scenes and
songs. The flexibility of the group allowed for changes in the program as the
actors sensed the reaction of the audience. In essence, the Future Theatre,
during the six-week period it was in operation, served as a laboratory
experience for Way (Wood 17—21). Through the fifty-one performances the
group put on in schools and hospitals, Way was able to discover what
material was best suited for certain age groups and the appropriate length of
each program, again based on age. Way also noted that most younger
children seemed to have a concentration span of seven and one-half minutes,
and that the best way to regain attention was to include a moment of

participation at that point (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview).

14

Several innovations based on Way's observations of previous Old Vic
tours marked the work of the Future Theatre. First, the actors took the plays
into the schools, allowing them a means of controlling audience size and age
range. Secondly, the actors moved closer to the audience by moving the
performance onto the floor of the hall, with the children seated in a semi-
circle around them. While the intention was to provide an intimate
theatrical experience for the children, the decision to perform in this manner
was pragmatic as well. Operating on a shoe-string budget, the actors lacked
the means to afford traditional stage accoutrements. In addition, many
schools lacked a theatre facility, making the decision to perform on the floor
of the hall the only possible one.

The third and most important innovation was the use of audience
participation. These initial instances were relatively simple, based upon the
actors' intuitive responses to the audience. Whenever the audience
spontaneously participated, the actors would attempt to incorporate the
participation into whatever they happened to be doing. These early attempts
at participation, coupled with Way's observation of the seven and one-half
minute concentration span are the important achievements of the Future
Theatre experience (Interview).

Way's next venture was the formation of the West Country Children's
Theatre late in 1943, with the first performance by the company in February,
1944. Way formed the company with John Morley, who at the start of the war
had been an actor on the BBC Children's Hour. Way had been put in touch
with Morley by a veteran actress with the Old Vic who had taken an interest
in Way's work with the Future Theatre. At the time of their meeting, Morley
had been teaching in Thombury, just outside Bristol and had developed an
interest in children's theatre that was similar to Way's (Wood 26-32).

15

The West Country Children's Theatre operated until 1950, although Way
left the company late in 1949. Through the performances in primarily rural
communities, Way was able to refine some of the techniques acquired during
his experimentation with the Future Company. From Morley, who had an
extensive theatrical and educational background, Way learned a great deal
about what to expect from the child audience.

Two important innovations included dividing the elementary students
into two groups with separate programs for each and the technique of
random selection of volunteers for participation sequences. In an interview
with Ronald Wood, John Morley points out that attempts to randomly select
volunteers were at times impeded by well-meaning teachers and principals
who wanted only their "best" students to participate. He recalled times when
they would ask for volunteers only to have the entire first row rise and
assume their best ballet positions. The turning point for Morley came when,
over the objections of her teacher, he selected a handicapped girl who had
volunteered to be a wood sprite. He states that she managed to amaze
everyone, particularly the teachers, with an improvised dance which started
with her seated on Morley's shoulders and moved to include the gymnastic
equipment in the room. He vowed to never again compromise his principle
of random selection (37-39).

In his work with the West Country Children's Theatre, Way first began to
explore the nature of participation and his theories on creative dramatics. In
the course of the performances, participation gradually changed from
children with scripts being directed by adult actors to meet the dramatic
requirements of the plays to audience participation improvised by the
children. Way felt that this was a benefit to teachers watching the

performances because it illustrated how the average teacher could use

16

dramatic activities with a class of children without the constraints of the
theatrical experience.

In an unpublished report written for the West Country Children's Theatre
Board of Governors in 1948, Way questioned the original mission of the
company, as presented in a brochure about the work of the group, and
outlined possible goals for the future. The brochure stated that the purpose of
the West Country Children's Theatre was "to present drama to children as an
essential part of their education and through it give them an outlet for self
expression" and "to give teachers in all types of schools...a first-hand
experience of the work of trained professional actors and to guide them in the
technique of stage production" (Wood 57-59). Way questioned the groups
ability to give children an outlet for self expression as long as the participation
was dictated to the children by adults. In questioning the merits of formal
theatrical productions, Way laid the foundation for his later scripts and work
in creative dramatics:

If we change our roles from that of actors teaching
dramatic art, to one in which we are teachers, using our
knowledge of drama to show methods by which teachers
can conduct their own dramatic activity to the greatest
benefit for every child-~if we change our role in this

manner, then we are being of direct positive assistance to
every teacher (Wood 58).

As for the second statement concerning giving teachers a guide to the
techniques of stage production, Way suggested that the clause be reworked to
read, "to show teachers the values of classroom drama and to guide them in
those methods of classroom drama which will be of maximum benefit to the
child, and will give each child an outlet for self expression" placing the

emphasis on creative drama as opposed to traditional theatre. He went on to

17

state that self expression would most likely occur if the audience size was kept
in check. Most of the changes that Way suggested were never implemented
because of the demise of the company. They did, however, serve as guidelines
for Way in his later work (60-68).

Between Way's departure from the West Country Children's Theatre late
in 1949 and the beginnings of the Theatre Centre in London in 1953, Way was
involved in a number of activities that helped confirm and develop his
thoughts on children's theatre and creative drama. Of primary importance
during this period is his association with Peter Slade. Slade had extensive
experience in both theatre and education, having experiemented in theatre
for children since the early 19303. His earliest company was the Parable
players which was based in London. In 1945, at the same time the West
Country Children's Theatre was in operation, Slade formed the Pear Tree
Players which, like Way '3 company, took theatre into the schools. The size of
the company and style of performance was similar to that of the West
Country Children's Theatre. In addition to his theatre work, Slade was
intimately involved in education, with his appointment as the first drama
advisor for Staffordshire in 1943 and his appointment in 1947 to the post of
Drama Adviser to the Birmingham Education Authority, a position he held
for over thirty years (69-72).

Way and Slade met in 1947 at the Drama in Education Conference in
London. The discovery that they each had been working along the same lines
but in isolation created an instant rapport between the two men and provided
each with positive reinforcement concerning their work. It led Way to begin
implementation of a more improvised form of audience participation in his
work with the West Country Children's Theatre. In the early 1950s, Way
worked directly with Slade at the Rea Street Drama Centre and was able to

18

observe first-hand the positive effects of creative dramatics work. His interest
in this and his desire to assist teachers in their drama work led Way to form
his one-man Drama Advisory Service in 1951, in association with Slade's
Educational Drama Association. The service was a resource for schools that
lacked the funding to employ a full-time drama advisor and supplemented
the work of those schools who did have such a staff position. In addition to
working directly in the schools, Way offered courses in creative drama to all
teacher training colleges. While working in this manner, Way received an
invitation from the British Council Representative in Georgetown, British
Guiana to tour the West Indies for six weeks. The bulk of the tour was spent
conducting creative dramatics activities in the schools in the mornings,
presenting courses to teachers in the afternoons and dividing the evenings
between lectures and working with amateur theatre groups. Saturday
mornings were spent presenting theatre for children with volunteer actors
(72-77). This marked the first of many such tours, not only to the West Indies,
but to several countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa and to the United States
and Canada (Creative Drama Workshop notes; Interview).

One other major influence during this time was Way's exposure to the
work at the Stewart Street School in Birmingham under the direction of
headmaster A. L. Stone. This unique, experimental school, which started
work in 1940, placed emphasis upon the arts and self expression. The primary
courses taught at this school were movement, mime, music, drama and art.
Traditional subjects were taught only through the primary coursework. The
atmosphere of the school encouraged creativity and imagination without fear
of assessment. Great importance was also placed on the inter- relatedness of
the arts (Wood 79). The influence of the Stewart Street School can be seen in

much of Way's later work.

19

In addition to teaching, conducting workshops, and continuing to work in
both adult and children's theatre, Way also returned to his earlier desire to
write. He was a frequent contributor to two journals, Theatre in EducationJ
founded in 1947 by Andrew Campbell, the organizer of the Drama in
Education Conference where Way and Slade met, and Creative Drama,
published by the Educational Drama Association. For Theatre in Education,
Way wrote a series of articles on film, stressing the importance of film
appreciation for children. These articles, coupled with his interest in
documentary film making, led him to work with the British Film Institute as
a lecturer on the connection between improvised drama in creative dramatics
and an understanding of film as an art (80-82). This interest in film would
surface later, both in his creative dramatics work and in his plays, most

notably in Angel of the Prisons.

 

Way was also given the opportunity to work as an editor. When Andrew
Campbell stepped down as editor of Theatre in Education in 1951, shortly

 

before the demise of the journal, he named Way as his successor. Way edited
the last five issues, in addition to contributing articles before the magazine
folded. Shortly after this, he found himself discussing creative drama
methods with Peter Slade, suggesting that Slade write a book about his
theories. According to Way, Slade pointed to a manuscript on a dusty top
shelf and told him, "There it is." Apparently, Slade had written the book for
London Press to be a companion piece to a text on children's art. It had been
shelved for some time because of the difficulty in finding an editor who had
an interest and knowledge of the subject. Way volunteered for the task and
became the editor of Slade's Child Drama, published in 1954, and a
subsequent volume, An Introduction to Child Drama, which was intended to

provide teachers with more practical applications and less theory (80-84).

20

1951 marked the writing and first production of Way's family play,

Pinocchio which was to become Way '3 most popular work. The play was

 

written in three days for the Arena Theatre Company in Manchester at the
request of Way's friend, Andrew Campbell, public relations director for the
company and Warren Jenkins, the production director. The company had
commissioned a playwright to adapt the story for their Christmas show, but
the script they received was unusable. It was then that they approached Way.
Rather than reworking the earlier script, Way reread the original story and
wrote his own adaptation (89-94). The script follows Carlo Collodi's story
fairly faithfully, with one notable exception. Way eliminates the sequence of
events where Pinocchio lies and his nose grows in length. Way felt that it
was more important to establish the character as good and trustworthy if
participation was to be included. If the children didn't feel that they could
trust Pinocchio, they would be less likely to help him later in the story.
Instead, the character is portrayed as an innocent who gets into trouble
because he is naive and gullible (Children's Theatre Workshop notes:
Interview).

Because the play was to be presented to family audiences, Way aimed the
participation at the middle age range, trusting the physicalization to hold the
interest of the youngest audience members and the story line and humor to
maintain the attention of the adults and older children. Unlike his other
plays, he also included the use of spectacle to aid in retaining the interest of
the older age groups. The importance of this piece is that Way made the
participation an integral part of the story, rather than simply adding on
moments of activity. Extensive notes are included in the script, outlining
Way '3 philosophy concerning participation. Among the items discussed are

the need for participation to grow out of a bond between actor and audience

21

member through a shared experience (Pinocchio 14); the importance of
genuine and controlled participation, as opposed to working audiences into a
frenzied shouting match; and the need to take suggestions from the audience
seriously, even if they are not implemented (44). Way provides a thorough
discussion of this play in Audience Participation: Theatre for Young People.
In this text, he also emphasizes the need for the actors to avoid insincere
humour, primarily to get laughs from adults, because it will break the bond
established with the children in the audience (2). This play was so successful
that it was used as the first production for the Theatre Centre in 1954.

The Theatre Centre started as a means to provide out of work actors with
an opportunity to sharpen their skills and hopefully establish contacts that
would lead to employment. Way was running the London branch of
the Educational Drama Association in 1953 and often came into contact with
former students he had met while teaching at various colleges and drama
schools. Way first broached the idea to Margaret Faulkes, a former colleague
from the West Country Children's Theatre, and she agreed to help Way in his
endeavor. Way's idea was to use improvisation as one of the important
performance techniques, and sought the advice of other theatre professionals
before continuing. He first approached Sam Wanamaker, who had used
improvisation in the creation of scenes in Clifford Odett's Winterjourney, but
felt that Wanamaker did not understand what he was attempting.

Eventually, he went to his mentor, Tyrone Guthrie, who told Way that his
ideas were ahead of their time, but that he should go ahead and do it (Wood
98-100).

Initially, the Centre produced adult pieces, developed out of both scripted

and improvised work, that were highly experimental in nature. The idea was

to provide a showcase for the actors' talents to audiences that included agents,

22

producers and directors. One of the most innovative was a radio play on the
life of Christ, Man Born to Be King by Dorothy Sayers. The play was written
in twelve episodes which had been broadcast during World War II. The first
performance was on April 20, 1954 with a running time of four hours and
fifty minutes. Reviews were highly favorable and the results were far greater
than either Way or Faulkes had anticipated. The audience had been filled
with many agents, managers and producers. Approximately seventy percent
of the actors involved in the production were hired for other positions.
Richard Southern, after seeing the production, talked to Way about his use of
the open stage, the topic of a book that Southern was in the process of writing.
Michael MacOwan, the newly appointed head of the London Academy of
Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) was impressed by Way's crowd scenes and
invited Way to join the staff of LAMDA to teach improvisation and direct.
Way accepted and held the position from 1954 until 1964 (102-106).

Eventually, the need to raise money led to the revival in interest in theatre
for children. Pinocchio was mounted both as a public performance and then
toured to schools as a means of raising revenue. Following the advice of I
Maisie Cobby, the drama advisor for the Inner London Education Authority,
Way developed a company patterned after the West Country Children's
Theatre, adapting familiar stories and fairy tales for performance. Way
outlined the following goals for the children's theatre company:

1. To provide opportunities for experiment and research
into the forms of theatre most suitable for children of all
ages.

2. To assist teachers in all types of schools with a method
of approach to drama in education.

3. To encourage, among children, an interest in and
appreciation of the living theatre by the presentation of

23

plays specifically selected and produced for children of
each age group (Wood 110).

By 1957, Way had begun to experiment with the type of production that
would become characteristic of the Theatre Centre. The first completely
original play, "Moon Magic," concerned a journey to the moon and contained
significantly more participation than the earlier plays (116). While the play
has not been published, many elements of the piece can be found in Way's
later works such as The Rainbow Box and Balloon Faces, both of which are

 

discussed in Chapter V.

The Theatre Centre provided a wealth of opportunity for growth and
experimentation for Way, not only as a playwright and director, but in the
development of his theories of creative drama. A major innovation was the
development of evening drama groups, with different age groups attending
on specific nights. These workshops, along with an improvisational theatre
program on Saturday mornings, served as a testing ground that later led to
the writing in 1964 of Way's text, Development Through Drama (154-161).

Way continued as head of the Theatre Centre until the early 1980s,
gradually relinquishing some of the responsibilities of writing and
fundraising to long-tirne members of the company as he devoted more of his
time to conducting workshops in various countries. In the mid-80$, Way
accepted a position with the Globe Theatre in Regina, Saskatchewan, and
moved his family to North America. He has continued to write, most
notably his text, Audience Participation: Theatre for Yogg People which was
published in 1981. He also has contributed articles to The Stage and the
Danish Amateur Theatre Journal as well as a chapter in Drama in Therapy,
published in 1981. He currently resides in Toronto with his wife and

daughter, and continues to conduct workshops on a limited basis. He has also

24

returned to acting with a presentation of a one-man Shakespearean show
(Interview).

Margaret Faulkes-Jendyk, who had left the Theatre Centre in 1965 to take a
position teaching creative dramatics at the University of Washington, did
much to create an interest in Way's work in North America through articles,
workshops and the founding of Young Audience Scripts which published
several of Way's plays (Wood 163). The publication of Way's text,
Development Through Drama, was to have a strong influence on many
people in this country, including Moses Goldberg and Nellie McCaslin (Sucke
50-52). The publication of over thirty of Way's plays by Baker's Plays in 1977
made his work more accessible to the North American audience. The
following chapters will examine that work, not only for an understanding of
the participation techniques developed by Way during his years at the Theatre
Centre, but in terms of thematic material that represent Way's philosophies
toward life and particularly toward working with children.

CHAPTER III
PARTICIPATION PLAYS FOR LOWER ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

In Audience Participation: Theatre for Young People, Way strongly

 

expresses his belief that there are definite advantages to splitting age groups,
not because of an adherence to educational criteria for each age group, but
because each group has a different intuitive response to theatre. For the
younger children, from about age five or six and up to approximately nine
years of age, Way feels that children's response to theatre is more of an
unconscious dramatic response, similar to many elements found in
children's play (84-86). He notes that this is a phenomenon that already
exists in children of this age, and since they have not yet learned the adult
"rules" for attending theatre and will respond both physically and vocally,
then this is not something that needs to be added on or invented, but rather
channeled into a more constructive and beneficial activity (1-3). Children in
this age group also readily accept the representational quality of theatre
without question, another aspect that is channeled from their play. Just as a
bedsheet can be used to create a tent or cave or become a cape that transforms
a child into a superhero, so, too, can a few rostrum blocks be deployed to
suggest a mountain ledge or a sailing vessel, depending upon how they are
used (Audience Participation 206-207).

For Way, symbolism plays a dominant role, not only in presentation, but
also in the text of his plays for lower elementary students. For this reason, the

plays in this category rely heavily on a "Fairy Tale" quality and the use of

25

26

"Magic" for overcoming adversity. There exists, in varying degrees, certain
forces of Evil that are counterbalanced by the forces of Good which, with the
assistance of the audience, inevitably prevail, restoring a certain order to the
universe created by the play. According to Way, there is a need for a "happy
ending" at this level and the argument that the "happy ending" is not
realistic is beside the point. The function of the fairy tale is not to show what
life is like, but what life could be like (87).

There are seven plays specifically geared for children in kindergarten
through third grade, The Wheel, The BelL The Mirrorman, The Hat, Balloon
Faces, Mr. Grump and the Clown, and The Rainbow Box. Three of these
plays, Balloon Faces, Mr. Grump and the Clown, and The Rainbow Box, are
each part of a trilogy of works on similar themes and Way indicates that a
narrower range extending only through the second grade is perhaps more
desirable. These trilogy plays will be discussed in a later chapter. In addition
to these seven plays, four of Way's full-length Family Plays, Puss in Boots,
Pinocchio, Sleeping Beaupv, and The Storytellers incorporate participation
devices aimed at the younger audience members, specifically ages five
through eleven. A full discussion of these works is included in Way's text,
Audience Participation: Theatre for Young People.

Each of the seven lower elementary plays calls for a company of four actors,
two men and two women, to perform the various roles. Each piece is staged
simply, with the children seated in a circle around the playing area, leaving
aisles open to accomodate entrances and exits. Sets consist of a few pieces that
are visible from the start of each of the plays. According to Way, it is
important that children be exposed from the opening of the play to any
costumes or set pieces that might command undue attention if introduced

later on. As he states in his introductory notes to The Rainbow Box, a play to

27

be discussed in a later chapter, "only people and what they do should be total
surprises; properties and costumes become distractions if we keep them as
surprises" (3).

Each of these plays has a running time of under an hour, something that
Way determined was appropriate for the attention span of this age group
seated on a hard school floor. It was with The Wheel that Way first limited
the lower elementary audience size to two hundred. He felt that this allowed
for an intimate audience / actor participation level without jeopardizing any
revenue the company must make (Wood 132). In fact, Way has stated that
there is no minimum audience size, but that directors of participatory theatre
need to guard against being saddled with "just a few more children." He
equates the problem with that of the teacher in a classroom having a class
doubled from twenty to forty students and still being expected to interrelate to
each and every one on the same level as before (Audience Participation 81-
82).

The Wheel is the earliest of the published lower elementary plays, first
produced in 1961 by the Theatre Centre. The play illustrates how easily stories
can be acted out by ordinary people. The story revolves around Ned
Wheelwright, an elderly wheelmaker who has built a wheel with seemingly
magic powers. With the help of Spoke, the magic attendant of the wheel,
Ned, his wife Martha, and Amos, a man who covets the magic wheel, are
transported into two different stories which they then enact. The first of these
stories involves a King who wanted to learn to dance and the second is about
a pirate who tries to steal treasure from a sea captain. Once they are returned
to their own time and place, it is revealed that Ned was given the wheel
because his eyesight is growing weaker and that he will no longer be able to

read the stories that have given him so much pleasure. Amos apologizes for

28

trying to steal the wheel for himself and promises to help Ned in his shop in
return for taking part in the stories.

Participation activities for The Wheel are, with one notable exception,
aimed at involving the entire audience. Under the leadership and controlled
by the character of Spoke, the audience members are primarily called upon to
make magic sounds and "fill the room with magic" by using their fingers,
hands and arms each time the wheel spins (9, 12, 21). It is the efforts of the
audience that allow the stories to unfold and that transport Ned, Martha and
Amos into the world of the stories. The exception takes place during the Sea
Captain/ Pirate story. Ned, as the Captain, with Martha as his crew, recruit
approximately twelve children from the audience to hoist sails, clean the
decks and generally prepare for the voyage. Likewise, Amos, as the Pirate,
recruits the same number as his crew to help capture the Captain and his
crew, tie and gag them. The pirate crew is returned to the audience when
Amos sends them, two by two, over the side of the boat. The entire audience
then helps to free the sailors when, under the direction of Spoke, they make
the sounds of knives cutting through ropes. Once they have been freed and
have captured Amos, Martha takes the sailor crew "below deck" thereby
returning them to the audience as well (23-25).

In terms of technical requirements for the piece, apart from the Wheel
prop, which must be able to spin, the only prop needed is a costume trunk,
which supplies wardrobe pieces for the stories and also serves as a treasure
chest. Controls for participation are quite simply vocal cues given primarily
by Spoke. Since the majority of the participation is done with the intention of
helping Ned who has been presented from the onset as a sympathetic
character, it is unlikely that the audience will not wish to help.

As stated earlier, this play illustrates the simplicity with which stories can

29

be enacted by ordinary people. It also points out the importance and benefits
of sharing by having Amos overcome his selfishness once he realizes the fun
that can be had if he works with Ned and Martha. The play ends with a
return to the dance that was learned in the first story, with the audience
providing the "oom-pom-pom's" and the realization by Ned, Martha and
Amos, and perhaps by the audience as well, that they and we are capable of
providing our own fun.

The Bell was first produced in 1962 and toured throughout the British Isles
for one year. This play is considerably more sophisticated than the earlier
offering, incorporating many techniques that are described in Way's book on
creative dramatics, Development Through Drama. The play introduces us to
Tom, a maker and seller of bells and Wag, a large stuffed bear who is Tom's
best friend. Wag and Tom meet a strange man who has lost his laugh.
According to the man, he has been given one year to find the "Bell of
Happiness" or all laughter will leave the earth. The man has a book that is
supposed to help, but he only has on hour left. Tom and Wag agree to try and
help by making the "Bell of Happiness" for the man. The first order in the
book is for Tom and Wag to "...make a mixture so that you can do anything
and go anywhere" (4). Once the mixture is made, Tom discovers that he
must solve the following riddle in order to make his bell:

Happy are they who can TASTE bread;
Happy are they who can SEE;
Happy are those who can SMELL a rose,
Or HEAR the faintest sound,
Or FEEL the gentlest touch (5).
Tom is able to solve the riddle by drinking some of the magic mixture

accompanied by a "hum" from the children, and embarking on a series of

30

journeys. The first journey takes them to a great feast held by a King and
Queen who gorge themselves on a daily basis. With the help of the Princess,
Tom fools the King and Queen into a "feast" of bread and water. The King
and Queen discover the joy of simple things and the first part of the riddle is
solved. The Princess joins Tom and Wag on the second part of the journey
across the sea. A tremendous storm washes the Princess overboard, but Tom
and Wag are rescued by George, a sailor fisherman who sees their tiny light,
and Mary, his wife who is blind, but heard the faint sound of the bells on
Tom's cart over the waves, thereby supplying Tom with two more
ingredients for making his bell. The Princess is rescued after Mary detects the
faint aroma of a rose the Princess is wearing, supplying the fourth ingredient.
The Princess is wrapped in a warm blanket, and they decide that a piece of the
blanket will supply the final ingredient for the bell. Tom and Wag then find
themselves transported back to the Market Square where once again they
meet the strange man. As they show him each of the ingredients for the bell,
the sound of bells slowly fade in. The man tells Tom that he has given
happiness to the King, Queen and Princess, to George and to his wife, Mary
and now he will be able to give happiness to the rest of the world. And with
that he begins to laugh, with everyone joining in.

This play employs several elements that are trademarks of Brian Way's
plays. The first is the depiction of Tom, the bellmaker, as the story's hero.
Tom, while not a child, possesses an innocence that appeals to the audience.
Way describes Tom as "...a friendly young man; he has no very great brain - in
fact he has been called slow-witted; but he is a clever craftsman at this one
great love of his life - Bells" (The Bell 1). His relationship with Wag is one of
warmth and affection. He treats Wag, as he treats everyone in the audience,

as an equal. This is highly important in establishing the connection between

31

Tom and the audience and, in a sense, empowers the audience since through
Tom, they are able to aid in the overcoming of all obstacles.

The second element is the use and development of the senses, one of the
primary elements in Way's creative dramatics activities. His early
concentration exercises in this field are centered around the development of
the five senses, beginning with early sensory awareness and leading to more

complex applications (Development through Drama 12-27). In The Bell

 

Way incorporates the senses into the riddle that Tom must solve in order to
make the Bell of Happiness.

Control elements have moved beyond the simple word commands used in
The Wheel, although they are still utilized. Much of the control is worked
out in the sequencing of the participation, a characteristic that will mark
much of Way's later work. For example, when Tom is faced with the need to
create the "magic mixture" that will allow him the freedom to do anything
and go anywhere, he asks the audience, at Wag 's suggestion, if they would
help. The sequence of ingredients is as follows, with the sound or movement

that is intended indicated in parenthesis:
1. The sound of hissing (small sound)
2. The noise of engines (large sound)

3. The flapping of wings (sound 8: small
movement)

4. The marching...of feet (sound through
movement)

5. Smoke patterns in the sky (large movement)

6. A great explosion (large sound and
movement)

32

7. The sound of insects (small sound - no
movement) (4-5).

By starting with the smallest sound and gradually increasing range and
motion, any intimidation on the part of the audience is decreased.
Participation is effectively terminated in each case by Tom, who simply
"collects" each element and places it in a bowl with a firm "There." The large
explosion indicated in step 6 allows for the natural progression in sound and
movement to reach a climax, and following with the sound of insects brings
the entire process to a quiet conclusion, allowing any children who may have
burst out of their seats on the explosion to return to a seated position
(Audience Participation 92-93).

One final element that also appears in later plays is the use of a journey
motif. Way states that the use of the journey in Children's Theatre is "as
integral...as editing processes are to film...." (21). The journeys can be
achieved quite simply in the open staging Way recommends for his plays
simply by using the aisles and center space, creating all necessary scene
changes by incorporating the imagination, much the same way children do in
play. On a deeper level, the journey allows the hero, and therefore the
audience, the experience of the quest, and by overcoming obstacles on the
way, allows the audience a deeper feeling of accomplishment and self-worth.

The Mirrorman was first produced in 1964, but elements of the story .
appear in a much earlier work. The story revolves around a Toyman who has
made a very special doll that walks and talks, and the Mirrorman, who is the
Toyman's image. With the help of the doll, Beauty, the Toyman and the
Mirrorman are able to thwart an evil Witch's efforts to gain control of the
Mirrorman's Magic Book, which would have given her control of the land

beyond the mirrors.

33

The characters of Toyman and Mirrorman first appeared in 1955 in a play
for family audiences entitled The Storytellers. In that particular play, the
Mirrorman helps the Toyman prepare the gift of storytelling to present to the
Princess on her birthday. An opening sequence in The Storytellers where the
Toyman discovers the Mirrorman is reproduced almost exactly in '_1"_1_'r_e_
Mirrorman. In each case, the Toyman goes to the mirror to tidy himself up
and decides that the mirror is dusty. The dust causes him to sneeze twice,
catching himself on a third sneeze. His mirror image sneezes all three times.
After a great deal of bobbing up and down, the Mirrorman finally, in
frustration, yells for the Toyman to stop (The Storytellers 2; The Mirrorman
3-4). From this point on, the plays branch off in different directions.

As in the previous plays, The Mirrorman incorporates the use of audience
produced sound to accompany or cause a movement onstage. In this
particular case, the audience can make Beauty walk, sit or stand by making the
appropriate sound. It also takes the entire audience humming to allow the
Mirrorman to pass through the mirror. Since it is primed from the opening
moments of the play with these relatively simple activities, the audience is
quite prepared to participate in lengthier and more intricate activities later on.

Way has stated that The Mirrorman is one of his favorite plays for the
lower elementary students, in part because of its initial successful run, which
led to its revival in the 197 3-74 Theatre Centre season as a means of
rebuilding the Centre's reputation, but also because the placement of
activities within the script successfully incorporates the natural ebb and flow
of the audience's energy (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Wood 226-
27). In Audience Participation, Way discusses this energy and how it relates

to an audience's concentration span:

34

The concentration span is linked to a balance of using
energy - a balance between moments of stillness and
quietness and moments of physical and vocal activity. As
adults we can consciously control the feelings arising
within us when there is imbalance, so that we can force
ourselves to remain still until that moment when 'it's
good to stretch the legs.’ Young children do not have the
same conscious control so that when there is imbalance
they instinctively move or turn or stretch; an activity we
often describe as 'restlessness.‘ (28)

It was precisely this type of "restlessness" that Way observed as an actor on
tour with the Old Vic company in the early 19403 and that inevitably led to
his experimentation with participation. Rather than attempting to restrain
children from their natural inclinations, Way incorporates these moments
into his plays as a natural outgrowth of the script. Approximately halfway
through The Mirrorman, it becomes necessary for the Toyman and
Mirrorman to break a spell that the Witch has cast on Beauty. The

Mirrorman calls on the audience for assistance.

Now, I'm going to read out what we need and you

must all help. Everybody - curl up as small as you

can. Now, with the sound I make, grow into big apple
trees. Now - a wind blows the trees and all the apples are
blown to the ground...let's hear the wind...Right! And
pick up the apples....and put them in your lap. Now - eat
the apples and save the pits...throw the apple cores away
as far as you can. Right! Now - grind the pits into powder
and save it carefully. Wonderful! Wonderful! Now
everything is ready to take off the spell....Now -

everyone. Blow the powder towards Beauty - Now! (15-
16)

The children have been sitting on the floor for approximately twenty minutes
at this point. By growing into big apple trees, they are given the opportunity
to stretch, Way has said that initially, teachers were a bit apprehensive about
allowing the children to stand, figuring that the actors would never get them

seated again. However, since one of the following instructions is to pick up

35

the apples that have fallen from the trees and to put them in their laps, the
children naturally return to a seated position (Children's Theatre Workshop
notes; Interview). This spell serves a twofold purpose. First, it allows the
children the opportunity to physically stretch and release any pent up energy
from the preceding scene where they encountered the Witch. Secondly, it
gives the children a sense of their own importance in defeating the Witch.
They are now active participants and have a stake in the outcome of the play.

Unlike the other plays for this particular age group, The Mirrorman is the

 

only play that presents an antagonist who is definitely evil. The other pieces
present either a character who is momentarily antagonistic, but who is

eventually reformed, such as Amos in The Wheel, or the plays present a

 

group of characters working to overcome a set of circumstances, as in m
B_e_ll. Because the Witch is so decidedly evil, the seating of the children in the
area takes on an importance not present in the other plays. In an interview
with Way, he emphasized the importance of not frightening the youngest
audience members. Way intended for this piece to be staged in the round.
Since normal seating in school situations places the youngest children in the
front, Way stated that it was important not to allow the youngest children to
be strung out all the way around the circle, but to have them seated as a group
on one side. This arrangement achieved two purposes. First, by keeping the
class together as a group, it allowed for some security due to familiarity with
those surrounding them, as opposed to being surrounded by children from
other classes. Secondly, in restricting the group to one side, it was possible to
stage the most threatening scenes with the Witch, such as when she confronts
and casts a spell on Beauty, in profile, rather than having her face any
younger children. Way found that this was far less intimidating for the
children than to have the Witch look directly at them.

36

The final play to discuss in this category is The Hat first produced in 1965.

 

This play continues along the lines established in the earlier works with one
or two additions to the material. The Hat includes participation that is a bit
more physical than in the previous plays, including a segment that splits the
audience into four groups, each enacting a different portion of a needed spell.
As in The Bell, the play also includes a fantasy companion to the central
character, this time in the form of an invisible dog named "Fizz."

The plot itself is relatively simple. A young boy, Peter, and his dog, Fizz,
deliver a magical hat made by Peter's mother to Mr. Hump, the magician.
Mr. Hump gets the hat stuck on his head, and it is up to the audience to help
Peter, his mother, Mr. Hump's daughter, Pauline, and, of course, Fizz, to
remove the hat. Mother is established as the primary control factor, for she,
too, has magical powers and is able to determine what is to be done by
consulting her crystal ball. The cues given are all verbal; her descriptions of
what she sees in the ball inform the audience as to what they are to do.
Initially she sees the color yellow and the following are the cues she gives the

audience:

I see a color. I see yellow. It's very faint, but it's coming
clear. Yellow. Not quite yellow--more the color of wood.
Yes, I see wood. Thin sticks of wood. Like arms and legs-
like--puppets! We need puppets. Everybody become a
puppet. And all the puppets are moving stiffly-—making
sounds like the sound of a clock. The sounds of clocks-
moving stifflyukeep the sounds and movement going—
keep them going-- (12).

It is through her rhythmic speaking that a tempo is established to keep the
movement going. Mother is able to end the movement by telling us that
when she claps her hands, the sound and movement will stop. She further

enhances this control with a firm "Now!" similar to Tom's use of "There!"

37

when gathering ingredients in The Bell. When the spell is complete, the
black hat is removed, revealing a yellow hat underneath. The audience then
become, in turn, seaweed and fish, revealing a blue hat, fire, revealing a red
hat, large trees and singing birds, revealing a green hat. It is Fizz who suggests
the final solution. The audience is divided into four sections, each becoming
either puppets, undersea creatures, fire, or trees with birds. A multi-colored
hat is then revealed, which Mr. Hump is able to remove quite easily all by
himself.

As previously noted, The Hat makes the most extensive use of physical
activity in a play for this age group to date. Rather than an occasional activity
to aid in the eventual outcome of the play, the activities comprise the bulk of
the play itself. The conclusion of each spell presents a new crisis that must
immediately be overcome, so that the audience is engaged physically and
vocally for all but the opening and closing of the piece. The activities
themselves are placed so as to provide the greatest contrast between sections.
The rhythmic and stiff movement of the puppets is replaced by the gentle
swaying of seaweed and swimming of deep sea creatures. When Mr. Hump
turns into a fish and it is necessary to get him to dry land so that he can
become himself once more, the audience becomes the wind and waves in a
great and ferocious storm, sweeping Mr. Hump ashore. These large, sweeping
movements are followed by small, frenetic activity as the fire begins to grow.
As the fire gets bigger, it is put out by Peter and Pauline with huge fire hoses,
allowing for the collapse of the audience to the floor. Finally, the movement
becomes slow and controlled as the audience grows into tall, stately trees.

Way not only incorporates sound with the varying movements, the
ticking of a clock with the puppets, the sound of the wind with the motion of
the waves, the crackling of fire and the birds in the trees, but he also, for the

38

first time, introduces colors as stimuli. Each time Mother sees a color in her
crystal ball, it suggests an activity/ movement. This is a concept that Way
explores further in Development through Drama. In his early sensory
awareness exercises, he often works to link the senses, asking what different
stimuli might suggest (1 1-27). Color is used later, most notably in _T_h£
Rainbow Box. This play will be discussed in a later chapter.

There are three other plays geared for lower elementary students: &
Grump and the Clown, The Rainbow Box, and Balloon Faces. Each contains
elements that have already been discussed in this chapter. However, each play
is a part of a trilogy of plays on different themes. For that reason, they will be
discussed in a later chapter.

In assessing the plays geared for Kindergarten through Third Grade, it is
important to note that even in plays such as The Hat where there is extensive
use of physical involvement on the part of the audience, at no time is the
action not fully under the control of a central character. Great care is taken to
establish, rehearse and reinforce any control device that may be used. Each
audience member is free to participate as much or as little as he or she desires
within the parameters established, but no student is called upon to "perform"
for others. One point that Way is adamant about is that no actor should
single out or evaluate any audience member's participation. He states that
actors inexperienced in this type of theatre often equate the loudness of a
response with its success and will sometimes try to make the audience "do
better than that." By forcing an audience to do more than they are willing or
able, the actor loses control. The audience will either refuse to participate out
of fear of being chastised again, or, and more probably, respond to everything
at high intensity, thereby negating any of the more subtle benefits that might
have been derived from the experience (Creative Drama Workshop notes;

39

Audience Participation 14-15).

One other characteristic of all the plays for this age group is that at the end
of the play, the characters, who treat the children as equals throughout the
play, sincerely thank the audience for their assistance, pointing out that
without the audience's help, the outcome might have been quite different.
This, in essence, empowers the children. Way points out that children,
particularly the youngest ones, live in an environment over which they have
little control. Giving them an opportunity, even for an hour, to make a
difference, can only enhance their self-esteem (Creative Drama Workshop
notes; Interview).

These four plays were some of Way's earliest for this age group and it is
interesting to note the development and recurrence of certain motifs. They
are all very simply staged in an arena setting with a minimum of props that
can be used for several purposes. They also all incorporate a sympathetic
protagonist who treats the children as equals. It is interesting to note that
these characters are either youthful, such as Tom in The Bell or Peter in E
flat, or grandfatherly figures, such as Ned Wheelwright or the Toyman in
The Mirrorman. At any rate, all of the characters possess a certain innocence
that makes them appealing to the audience, and as the characters trust the
audience to help them, so, too, can the audience trust the characters. This
trust aids in the effectiveness of the participation, all of which seems geared
toward early work in creative drama, particularly in the development of the
senses.

For the most part, the participation requires the whole group working at
one and the same time. The one exception to this is in the pirate segment of
the earliest play, The Wheel, where individuals are pulled from the audience
to be sailors and pirates. Way experimented with this type of small group

40

participation later in his trilogy plays, but never with the youngest audience
members. There are also instances of different types of small group
participation in the upper elementary plays, which will be discussed in the

next chapter.

CHAPTER IV
PARTICIPATION PLAYS FOR UPPER ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

In 1959, Way came to the conclusion that to better serve his audience, he
needed to target a narrower age range. Prior to this time, the work in the
elementary school had been for students from age five up to age eleven or
twelve. Way discovered that while the older students might enjoy the sense
of occasion offered by having a performance during school hours, their tastes
and needs were developing more sophistication, and that the type of
participation so eagerly done by the lower elementary students, as well as the
fairy tale story lines, were sometimes considered a bit childish by the older

children (Audience Participation 47-50; Wood 119-120). It was for this reason

 

that he began writing works specifically geared for students in the Fourth
through Sixth Grades.

In some respects, the early plays for this age group continue methods
already established in the lower elementary plays. Three of the pieces,

Crossroads, The Ladder; and The Lantern, still possess a certain "fairy tale" or

 

magical quality about them. With the exception of Crossroads, which has a
cast of six, all of the works use a cast of two men and two women. Playing
time for each piece is still approximately one hour and the preferred staging is
arena style, with the audience seated on the floor. Again, Way is adamant
that the audience size be kept small. According to Way, "Intimate staging is a
necessary condition for the best results in audience participation: The whole

room becomes the 'theatre', the actors and audience sharing the same space

41

42

and the same experiences. The closer the children are to the action, the more
genuine their involvement; intimacy thus determines a limited audience -
the smaller the better" (Crossroads i). Subsequent plays indicate that the
audience size should not exceed two hundred. Where the plays for this age
group differ from the lower elementary works is in the thematic material

and, with the exception of Crossroads, the type of participation required.

 

The thematic material for the upper elementary plays moves beyond the
development of the senses, imagination and self-esteem found in the plays
for the lower elementary students and begins to address more social and
political themes. The six plays in this category, Crossroads The Ladder, The
Lantern, On Trial, The Decision, and The Island explore questions such as
pacifism, ecology, modernization and mechanization of differing cultures and
societies, preservation of a cultural heritage and man's responsibility to
society. While the plays do show the playwright's bias, they are not political
agenda pieces that espouse a specific course of action. Rather, the plays take
great care to present both sides of an issue. Characters in the plays are not
wholly good nor evil. Where characters appear less sympathetic, an attempt
is made to explain and understand their actions. In two of the plays, On Trial
and The Decision, the audience is asked to discuss and decide on their own
who is right and what course of action should be taken.

With the exception of Crossroads, participation moved from exclusively

 

whole group participation to more active participation by a randomly selected
group of students. Way felt that this age level was moving toward the desire
to perform and, because of that, did not feel that there would be any major
problems of embarrassment (Wood 143). On the offchance that there might
be problems, Way took great care to instruct his actors as to the handling and
placement of the participating children so that they would not feel compelled

43

to "act up" in front of their contemporaries. He also emphasized, as he did in
the lower elementary plays, that if the actors are completely absorbed in

what they are doing, the children will follow suit (Interview).

 

The first play specifically for this age group is Crossroads, which was first

produced in 1960. Crossroads is a reworking of an earlier script, "The

 

Signpost", which was intended for the entire five to eleven age group, but
which was not successful in performance. It was with Crossroads that Way
decided to limit the age range of all future endeavors. According to Ronald
Wood in The Evolution of Brian Way's Participational Theatre, the play was
originally in two acts with a playing time of two hours (129). It has since been
reduced to a single act with a running time of approximately one hour,
allowing it to fit into a school tour format.

This early play employs many of the elements found in the lower
elementary works. It is essentially a fairy tale that incorporates whole
audience participation, with the audience primarily providing vocal support
for certain spells. While it is simple enough for younger audiences to follow
and participate, the play is serious enough in tone and theme that it appeals
to the older children as well (Crossroads ii). The plot revolves around four
leaders, the Scientist of the South, the Queen of the North, the Proud Bird of
the East, and the Mighty Monster of the West, who meet at the Crossroads to
do battle, and the efforts of the Spirit of the Signpost and an old Tramp to
bring about peace.

The Tramp is an offshoot of Way's interest in film (Interview),
representing a Chaplinesque type of clown. In fact, in his production notes on
the play, Way describes the original Tramp’s costume as "an ill-fitting coat
with pockets, over baggy trousers, and a bowler hat..." (ii). Way gives the

following description of the character:

44

He is no old fool, not a country bumpkin, yet he is simple
and unsophisticated: He is not involved in the main
stream of life because experience of being so has brought
little liking for the hell-pace of life called civilization: Yet
he has not allowed himself to be forced behind the
defensive shell of any firmly held intellectual or spiritual
fortification: Materialistic possessions bore him, so he
gave them up: Power and authority distress him, as much
in himself as in others, so eventually he neither looked
for nor was offered any. So he became a tramp and found
happiness in simple hope: and hope became faith - but
faith without drive or ambition. Eventually the most he
really wanted from life was to have something to do, with
simple responsibility, genuine contact with other people
and no anxiety about the quantity or quality of food or
shelter (Crossroads 1).

 

The simplicity of the character makes the Tramp a conduit for the audience,
much as Tom in The Bell embodies the lower elementary students. The
audience feels a certain sympathy for the Tramp which allows them to feel
his fears and cheer his triumphs. As in most of Brian Way's plays, there is
also a strong leader, in this case, the Spirit of the Signpost, who persuades the
central character, and thereby the audience, to help in a cause, in this instance,
restoring peace to the earth. The Spirit also gives the audience a certain
assurance that right will prevail. It is the Spirit that serves as the leader for
the majority of the participation.

In order for peace to be restored, the Spirit informs the Tramp that four
things must happen. The Tramp must make "one laugh and another
cry....save one life and show another mercy" (8). When the Tramp asks the
Spirit, who has the power to freeze individuals or turn them into something
else, why she doesn't do just that to make the four enemies stop fighting, the
Spirit replies, "Because there would be others just as greedy to take their place.
I don't want to get rid of them. I simply want to help them change their ways"

(7), espousing the political philosophy of the play. Eventually, of course,

45

peace is restored when the Tramp, with assistance from the audience, is able
to remove each warring character's symbol of power: a wand from the
Scientist of the South, the magic diamond from the Queen of the North's
crown, the magic scale from the back of the Monster of the West, and the
golden feather from the Proud Bird of the East.

Participation in Crossroads is relatively simple, and involves the entire
audience at all times. Essentially, the participation relies on vocal activity
throughout the piece, although some small movement is suggested to go
along with the sound on two of the spells. The Spirit of the Signpost
establishes herself as the leader and, through the use of a handclap as a
control device, demonstrates to the Tramp her ability to change people into
different things and simultaneously leads the audience through some warm-
up participation activities. The audience in turn and on cue from the Spirit,
laughs, moans and groans, makes the sound of the wind, of engines, of fierce
animals and finally, very gentle and happy animals (7). As in the lower
elementary plays, there is a natural progression in the arrangement of
participation, allowing for growth and a climax with the fierce animals, and
ending on a quieter note with the gentle animals. This warm-up allows the
children an opportunity to practice cues that will be needed later on, giving
them a sense of security in the participation.

One aspect of this play that was new to Brian Way's work was the
inclusion of a stylized dance-drama in the opening moments of the piece.
Way had first been exposed to this technique in the early 1950's
while working with Peter Slade at the Rea Street Drama Centre in
Birmingham (Wood 84). In Crossroads, the Tramp has arrived at the
Signpost and is trying to decide which road to take. It is at that moment that

the four adversaries representing the four points of the compass, swoop into

46

the space and act out a fierce battle that is eventually halted by the Spirit of the
Signpost (2-3). Through the symbolic dance, the audience is able to see what
the world would be like if this war continues, and thereby understand the
urgency and necessity in achieving peace. Way feels that older children are
able to understand and interpret such symbolic activities (Crossroads ii). In
spite of the simplicity of the participation, it is the inclusion of the dance-
drama, along with the more serious theme, that mark this as an upper

elementary play.

 

The Ladder was the second play written specifically for upper elementary
students and was first produced in 1961, touring with The Wheel for the
lower elementary students (Wood 131). In many respects, The Ladder echoes
the thematic material and structure of The Wheel. Both plays use four actors
and are performed in the round. Both make use of a central prop that
inspires the action of the play, and is controlled by a central, magical character,
and the basic premise of each piece is the ability of the remaining characters,
who are ordinary people, to act out different stories. Where this play differs

from The Wheel is in the subject matter covered in the stories and in the

 

style of participation.

The setting for the play is a mountain, many days journey from
civilization. At the top of the mountain stands the Ladder. According to the
legend, if anyone can climb the mountain and reach to the top of the Ladder,
their hopes, dreams and ambitions will come true for twenty-four hours.
Seated on top of the Ladder is the Keeper of the Ladder, who has the power to
grant the wishes of those who climb up.

The three characters who have climbed the mountain, independently of

One another, are a rich Merchant, who has recently purchased the mountain,

Nina, a simple peasant girl, and Bill, a soldier. In The Wheel, the reason for

47

enacting the stories is simply that it gives Ned great pleasure. It is implied in
The Ladder that the Merchant, Nina and Bill have all approached the Ladder
because of some great personal need. Initially, the three distrust each other,
with Bill and the Merchant openly hostile toward one another. However, as
the play progresses, the Keeper of the ladder encourages each to reveal his or
her secret wish and it is then enacted with the help of the others and
randomly selected members of the audience. At the end of the play, the
Merchant reveals that he plans to remove the ladder and take it home with
him, but he is dissuaded from this course of action by Nina. It is then that the
Keeper reveals that each person has his or her own "ladder" and can bring
stories to life by simply asking friends for help.

Bill and the Merchant present the most political messages of the play,
although a message can be found in Nina's wish as well. Way describes Bill
as "a good soldier, who can, and has fought in many battles without thought
for himself or the horror of danger. But once, in battle, he saw something that
rooted itself within his mind - so he too has reached the need to climb the
mountain and stand at the foot of the Ladder" (1). Further into the play, the

Keeper persuades Bill to describe his need:

I'll tell you why I'm up here. It's because I'm a soldier,
see. It's because I'm sick of killing and preparing to kill.
It's because I thought that up here I'd find something
different. I'd heard of the mountain, see. I'd read about it.
And when I heard there was a Ladder at the top, and that
if I could climb the mountain and reach to the top of the
Ladder - that if I could just do that, then I - I could have
something different - well, I thought I'd give it a try (10).

Bill's desire is to take part in an adventure that has nothing to do with war.
What the characters eventually enact is the plight of a group of people caught

in an avalanche, and their eventual rescue by Bill. While not as strong as the

48

anti-war theme of Crossroads, the sentiment reflecting the horror of war has
at least been expressed.

Nina's wish, at first glance, seems a bit more simple and child-like. She
describes having seen a picture of a girl dancing with puppets and reading a
story about them. Her wish is to be a part of that story. In the course of acting
out the story, evil puppetrnasters force the puppets to work too hard, but with
the help of magicians, the puppets turn the tables on the puppetmasters until
the puppetmasters repent and promise to treat the puppets more humanely
(15-16). Couple this with statements that Nina makes about tending her
animals on the farm and her message would appear to be one of
responsibility and caring for all creatures, no matter how small.

The Merchant, who initially seems greedy and self-serving, expresses a
desire for a more simple existence. He describes his life to the others as

follows:

Well - well, you all probably think that because I'm so
wealthy and own so much property and have so many
people working for me, that I've got everything anybody
could possibly want. But it's not true, you know. To have
so much doesn't mean that - well, it doesn't mean you're
going to be happy....You see, there are so many things I
can't do - so many just ordinary things. I can't even go for
a walk on my own. Lots of people have togo with me, and
they're always bowing and scraping and pretending to like
me, so that they can get something or other out of me.
I've only to take my hat off and someone rushes forward,
takes it out of my hand and hangs it up. I'm not allowed
to do even a simple thing like that for myself. Do you see
what I mean? There's not much fun in life like that. And
there certainly isn't very much excitement (22).

The message that material wealth does not guarantee happiness is fairly
clearly stated. In his wish, the Merchant becomes a simple laborer who

Challenges and defeats an evil and greedy baron. The laborer spares the

49

baron's life, but forces him to agree to be more just when dealing with the
people, both in the amount of taxes paid and the demands made upon them
to work (25-28). This reinforces the message present in Nina's wish.

Shortly after completing his adventure, the Merchant makes the statement
that he plans to remove the Ladder for his own personal use. It would appear
that he learned nothing from the enactment of the adventures. Nina,
however, is able to persuade him, rather quickly and somewhat abruptly in
terms of development of the plot, that he should leave the Ladder for others
(28-29). This section seems a bit weak, especially when compared to how the
same dilemma was handled in The Wheel. Amos, who coveted the Wheel

 

initially, is reformed through the experience of enacting the stories, and is
therefore much more sympathetic at the end of the play. The Merchant's lack
of understanding after the experience, coupled with his rather quick reversal,
leaves one vaguely suspicious and not quite trusting of his actions. The
ending would perhaps be more satisfactory if the Merchant's reform evolved
from the main action of the play.

With The Ladder, Way began to experiment with small group
participation. This had been done on a limited level in The Wheel when

 

Ned, Martha and Amos recruit sailors and pirates to take part in one of the

stories. In The Ladder, each adventure calls for additional characters, selected

 

at random from the audience.

In Bill's avalanche adventure, Nina and the Merchant select a few
audience members to be part of a mountain-climbing group. While Nina and
the Merchant explain to these people what will happen in the upcoming
scene, the Keeper rehearses with the rest of the audience the sounds of the
avalanche, the wind and a blizzard. Most of the scene is improvised. When
the avalanche hits, Bill takes charge. Some of the party, including the

50

Merchant, have been injured, and Bill instructs the volunteers how to help
the injured to safety. Since all of the audience are involved to some extent,
either as active participants or as the sound of the avalanche and storm, there
is less of a feel of "performance" to this section of the play. This is a concept

that Way uses in his creative dramatic work as well. In Development

 

through Drama, he uses the concept of "filming" an activity performed by
others. It allows the students not performing an opportunity to observe while
participating, and since the "audience" has a specific activity that is connected
with the performer's work, the performer tends to feel less inhibited (108,
162). The participation in this initial adventure serves as a good warm-up for
the following activities.

Nina's puppet adventure calls for help from only a small portion of the
audience. Nina selects four audience members to be puppets with her, Bill, as
the puppetmaster selects four more puppetrnasters, and the Merchant selects
four people to be magicians with him. In this instance, the participation has
moved to a delineation between audience and performer, but because this
was suggested in the first adventure, the audience is prepared for it. In
addition, those participating are never asked to perform alone, but are
constantly led by either Nina, Bill or the Merchant and always perform as a
group. They are also given very specific instruction as to what to do by either
Nina, the Keeper, Bill or the Merchant.

The Merchant's adventure incorporates both styles of participation once
again. The Merchant and Nina each choose six or seven volunteers. The
Merchant's helpers work on building a wall for the Baron, who is played by
Bill, while Nina's helpers labor in the field, picking vegetables. Initially, the
workers may ask for assistance from the rest of the audience, either in

providing more stones for the wall, or in helping to harvest the crops. This is

51

done as a form of rehearsal for the scenes to come. After the Merchant
finishes telling the Keeper the details of the story, the participation shifts to
the selected groups, once again under the leadership of either Nina or the
Merchant. To begin, each group forms a still photograph of where they left
off in the improvisation. The action comes to life when the Keeper gives the
signal. This is another technique that Way discusses in Development
throw Drama, pointing out that it aids in beginning action. He states that
instead of having to work out all of the details of how to start, the participants
are able to jump into the middle of the main action of the story (108).

One further development in the participation is that the participants are
encouraged to provide spontaneous vocal responses, in character, to some the
Baron's outrageous statements, taking the participation a step farther than the
controlled activities in Nina's story. The climax of this segment is a very
physical duel between the Merchant and Bill, accompanied by much cheering
and support from the participants, and allowing for a natural release and
celebration following all of the adventures.

The Lantern is the third of the upper elementary plays, first produced in
1962, and also containing a fairy tale format. In some respects, it echoes
previous work in that the play contains four characters drawn to a central
prop which possesses magical qualities. There is also the acting out of a story
by the characters with the help of the audience. This time, however, the
purpose is not simply to show how easily stories can be acted out, but to
discover a truth about the past. In addition, this play presents a more overt
political statement by allowing the characters to look into the future.

The plot is centered around the legend of a Lantern, which has no apparent
means of lighting, but from time to time is reported to light up. The Lantern

is located on a remote part of a stormy coastline. Four people have come to

52

take a look at the Lantern, in the hope that they can see it light up. Anne, a
young woman, arrives first, having traveled to the remote spot on horseback.
She is joined by Steve, a writer, whose family history is tied to the Lantern.
Toni, an older English lady, inventor of gadgets, and a bit of an eccentric is
brought out by Peter, who owns a fishing boat and has lived in the area all of
his life. When high tide cuts the four of them off from the mainland, Peter
relates the legend of the Lantern. One hundred years ago, a terrible storm
wiped out a fishing village near the old lighthouse. The people in the village
who had escaped to higher ground could see that the lamplighter had
managed to light the Lantern in order to guide the fishing boats to shore.
However, all of the ships were wrecked and no one on board who survived
had seen the light. The lamplighter, Steve's grandfather, had disappeared.
Steve has come to the Lantern to see if he can discover the truth about what
happened. Both Toni and Peter had relatives who had lived in the village
and have come on the anniversary of the event. Anne has come merely out
of curiousity.

Toni is the first to discover the power of the Lantern. As she stares at the
lantern, she begins to imagine a world filled with all sorts of gadgets.
Eventually, the gadgets are replaced by machines which begin to overpower
the human race. Just as she is about to be crushed, her trance is ended. She
had seen the Lantern light, but no one else had, nor did they remember
anything that Toni had seen.

Peter then enters into a trance, imagining a world where the Lantern has
become a tourist attraction and the growth of the village to a larger and larger
city. Eventually, this, too, looms out of control until the city threatens to
destroy the beauty of the seaside. As he comes out of his trance, Steve figures
out that the Lantern has the power to transport people through time. He

53

stares into the Lantern and is transported back one hundred years to discover
what happened to his grandfather.

Three separate messages are presented in this play. The first is voiced by
Toni after her vision of the future and concerns the overmechanization of
society. In her vision, she witnesses the immense power of machines, and as
she comes out of her trance, she makes the statement, "I didn't mean it to be
like that. My gadgets are supposed to help people - not to destroy them....God
protect us from a world ruled by machines" (13-14). The second message
deals with the preservation of the land, even at the expense of "progress."
Peter's vision shows him the growth of a city to the point that the beauty of
the land has all but disappeared. As he comes out of his trance, he appeals to
Steve and Anne for help in preventing this from happening:

It mustn't be like that. Better that the sea and the rain
should strip the land to nothing but a barren waste....Let
them stay in their cities and leave the loveliness of the
land and the sea to those who won't try to change it....You
won't let it happen, will you sir? Nor you, miss. You are
both young. You can both stop it from happening. You
can stop the litter and the filth and the noise and the
emptiness....You can stop it from being such a waste (15).

The third message, rather than being political, expresses the belief that we
all can see our dreams come true once we know what we really want. Oddly
enough, it is Anne, who never falls under the spell of the Lantern, who
expresses this. When asked why she won't take a turn with the lantern, she

responds, and it is important to note that the response is without regret,

Because I don't know what I want. You all know exactly
what you wanted. (To Toni) You wanted to see a world of
the future, filled with gadgets and machinery. (To Peter)
You wanted to see a time when a great city was built near
the lantern. (To Steve) And you wanted to see into the
past - to see what really happened all those years ago in
the great storm. But I don't know what I want. So I shall

54

go away and think about it - and when I know for certain
just what I want, I shall come back again....You see the
light as soon as you really need to. The thing is, though,
to believe in it all the time (23).

It is worth noting that this play, unlike Crossroads and The Ladder does

 

not have a central figure who possesses magical powers or is capable of
imparting great wisdom. Instead, we have four ordinary, but very different
individuals who, through their own struggles, discover the power of the
Lantern and are able to implement it, or decide against implementing it, on
their own. In essence, this serves to reinforce the concept of empowering the
audience, an element that is present in all of Brian Way's works. Without

stating it as blatantly as he did in The Ladder, Way has illustrated that we all

 

have the ability to "see the light as soon as you really need to." It is all a
matter of belief in oneself.

Participation elements in The Lantern are on a more limited scale than the

 

previous plays, only occurring on two occasions. The first is whole audience
participation involving gradually increasing motion and sound to accompany
Toni's vision of a mechanized society. The entire audience, under the
leadership of Steve, Anne and Peter and under the vocal direction of Toni,
begin making small gadgets and gradually move onto larger and larger
machines. Eventually, Steve, Anne and Peter all become part of an enormous
machine, sounds provided by the audience, that threatens Toni. Steve's
vision of the past provides an opportunity to pull audience members into the
performance. In this story, Peter becomes Sam, the skipper of one of the
ships, Anne becomes his daughter, Tess, Toni becomes Judith, an older
woman of the village with a gift for prophecy, and Steve becomes his
grandfather, Paul, the lamplighter. Each individual selects audience

members to be villagers and puts them to work mending nets, repairing

55

boats, preparing food, etc. The selection and the improvisation do not stop
the action, but flow naturally out of it, since all of this is done completely in
character (17). The action continues through the course of the storm and
shipwreck. The villagers help the survivors ashore, thus returning them to
their seats. This participation is similar to the Merchant's adventure in m
glide; in that, while the four actors maintain a certain degree of control, the
participants are also allowed a certain amount of spontaneity in their choice
of activity and as to what happens to them in the storm itself.

On a final note, while there is a development in this piece in the order of
the participation, Way chose to add some variety by not having any audience
participation for Peter's vision, which falls in the middle of the piece.
Instead, Way once again employs the use of a dance-drama set to music that
shows how the growth Peter envisioned can get out of control. Way's interest

in abstract stylization would best be implemented in his next play, On Trial

 

and in his work for Secondary School students.

On Trial was first produced in 1963 and marks a departure from the fairy
tale format that would continue with the next two plays. The emphasis shifts
from the fairy tale to one of adventure and the difficulty of making crucial
decisions (Wood 142). The organization of the play differs as well. Instead of
opening with the introduction of a character to whom the audience can
relate, we are confronted with a stylized, Kafkaesque trial scene, where a man,
his wrists bound, is brought into the room to face three unknown, masked
accusers. The majority of the play is presented as a flashback so that the
audience can see the events and judge for themselves. This is also the first
play for this age group that incorporates the concept of the journey or quest as
a means of discovering the truth.

The physical setting also incorporates the abstract, improvisational nature

56

of the piece. In that the bulk of the play is occupied with a journey, several
settings are suggested: a prison, a room in a military camp, a swamp, a deep
ravine, which the participants cross on a rope bridge, and the land where the
herbs grow. Since the intention is to perform this piece in a school hall or
gymnasium with the audience seated in a circular fashion on the floor, Way
suggests using only two rostrum blocks for the set that can be arranged as
necessary. Way further suggests that the expedition travels across the arena
and behind the audience, returning to the arena for all of the major scenes
(On Trial i).

The man on trial is David Abbott, guide for an expedition in some
unspecified, but primitive country. His main accuser is Major Carl Benthall,
leader of the expedition. The remaining characters are Bess, who is in charge
of the provisions and Pauline MacBride, or "Dr. Mac", the expedition's
doctor. Dr. Mac is faced with the outbreak of a highly contagious disease that
many years ago nearly wiped out all of the villages in the area. According to
local legend, a mysterious herb that grows on the other side of the plateau is
the only thing that stopped the epidemic. Under objections from the Major,
David makes plans to cross the plateau, even though the trip is fraught with
many dangers, both from nature and enemy tribesmen. The bulk of the play,
and in fact all of the participation, involves the journey to gather the herb. By
the time the herb is gathered, it becomes apparent that the tribesmen have
taken over the area, and that David was aware of this possibility before
leading the expedition there. If the herbs are not returned to the community
by the following evening, the village could be wiped out. David decides to go
back on his own, leaving the Major to follow the same route back. As David
leaves, the journey ends and the plot picks up back at the trial. Only five
people made it back from the expedition alive, but the herbs did save the

57

village. The Major claims that David deserted them. Dr. Mac points out that
the Major chose to follow a different route back than the one David had
chosen. David's route was shorter, but physically dangerous. The Major's
route was physically safer, but the tribesmen caught up with them. At the
end of the play, the Major is still convinced of David's guilt, Dr. Mac says he is
innocent and Bess can see both sides. The audience is told that they are the
jury and they alone can make the decision. .

The issues presented in this play are fairly straightforward. The play
mainly deals with man's responsibility to his fellow man and accepting
responsibility for one's own actions. Way takes great care to make sure that
nothing is cut and dried. Initially, David is the more sympathetic character.
He has a sense of humor and apparently gets along well with everyone except
the Major. Bess describes them as "two blades of a pair of scissors; every time
they meet - snap. Somebody's head's bound to roll" (5). And yet, David is
not without his faults. He continually challenges and defies the Major, who
is against the expedition from the start, and only agrees to go after his sense of
duty is challenged. David also knew before starting out that the country
where the herb grows had been taken over by enemy tribesmen and withheld
that information for fear that the expedition would not take place. Finally,
and most importantly to the Major, he left the group to make it back on their
own so that he could get the herb to the village on time.

The Major, as has previously been pointed out, initially appears as very
unsympathetic. He is so rigidly militaristic that Dr. Mac explains his
behaviour as, "...he's just so used to giving orders that he can't ask for the
sugar without it sounding like a military campaign" (5). He also appears to
be somewhat racist. When told of possible outbreak of the epidemic, his
response is, "But there's nothing you can do. I shall evacuate all the people

58

that matter. The rest will have to take their chance. We shall do it in an
orderly fashion, and I'll thank you all to keep quiet about this so that there's
no general alarm. If word gets about, there's bound to be panic" (7). And yet,
even though he disagrees with him, David respects the Major's ability to lead,
and it is for that reason that David persuades the Major to come on the
expedition.

Midway through the expedition, after the group, under David's guidance,
has successfully passed the first major obstacle and are settling down for the
night, Way takes a break in the action that shows a more sympathetic side of
the Major. The Major, through the urging of the others, tells the story of the
legend of the witch doctor and the Chieftain. In the course of telling the tale,
he also acknowledges David's expertise, returning the measure of respect
David had previously given him. Shortly after concluding the story, the
group hears drums, and it is the Major's quick actions that protect the group
from being attacked by marauding tribesmen. His ability to take quick and
immediate control of the situation further establish trust in his leadership.

Way is careful to maintain this balance throughout the piece. Sometimes
David's advice is followed; sometimes the Major's. In one key scene near the
end of the expedition, David disobeys the Major's orders, doing what he
thinks is best for the party, no matter what the personal consequences might
be. Once the course of action is taken, the Major works with David,
demonstrating the necessity for teamwork. It is this balance that leaves the
question of David's guilt or innocence open for debate, an event that Way
hopes will take place after the play, in the classroom (Children's Theatre
Workshop notes; Wood 145).

The participation in this play is the most complex and detailed in any of
Way's plays to date. With the exception of telling the audience members that

59

they are to decide David's guilt or innocence, the play is structured for small
group participation by sixteen audience members. Originally, twenty-four
participants were chosen, reduced to twenty and then finally sixteen due to
space constraints and the length of the journey (On Trial 29). According to

Way,

The participation by a small group of volunteers was
originally incorporated with the conscious educational
objective of assisting teachers with a method of approach
to drama in education - i.e. Creative Drama. Inclusion of
the small group participation in this play is advisable 9_r_rly
if the play is to be presented with an educational objective
in an appropriate environment. Should the play be
presented in leisure time as a theatre experience only, it is
strongly recommended that the groups be regular adult
members of the cast who are fully rehearsed through
improvisation (On Trial i).

In other words, Way feels that if On Trial is to be presented to family
audiences or audiences of mixed ages, which he does not advise, that it would
be better to eliminate the audience participation in favor of supplementing
the cast of four with additional actors who would take the roles of the
volunteers. Way feels that this is preferrable to subjecting children to the
possible embarrassment of being viewed by those other than their peers
(Children's Theatre Workshop notes).

Each of the four characters selects four volunteers to assist them on the
journey. Dr. Mac chooses a medical team, Bess selects porters and cooks,
David Abbott needs "a fearless group of people to plan and guide us on the
journey" (12) and the Major requires military personnel to carry the burden
of the camping equipment and to protect the group from marauding
tribesmen. In his "Notes on Participation" for this play, Way outlines the
procedure for selecting participants. Among the criteria, Way includes:

60

1. That each character selects his or her own group

personally.

2. That it is important to try and avoid the youngest
audience members, since it may be too intimidating to

be observed by older students.

3. That it is equally important to appear to select at
random, so that students won't feel that any particular
group is given preferential treatment.

4. To be very specific about who has been chosen, using
descriptive phrases if necessary. Way points out that if
the individual is not clearly identified, six others may
think they have been and all will move into the

playing area.

5. That it is important to wait for volunteers and select
only from them. If there is reluctance, which from
Way's observation is unlikely, then the characters
should repeat the urgency of the situation and the
need for help (29).

Three types of participation are present in this play, directed, stimulated
and spontaneous, with directed being used most frequently. Because of the
necessity of keeping the action flowing, coupled with the serious nature of the
circumstances of the plot, most of the directed participation is controlled by
either David or the Major in the form of specific instructions in terms of the
journey, i.e., standing guard, constructing a rope bridge, crossing the bridge,
setting up camp, gathering the herbs, etc. However, within much of that
framework there is room for individualism in the form of stimulated

participation. As an example, when the teams are originally chosen, they are

61

asked to pack items necessary to the journey, such as food, cooking supplies,
tents, blankets, maps, etc. If the response is slow in coming, the principal
characters might make some suggestions, but the improvisation of packing
and what to pack is left up to the participants.

Spontaneous participation is more difficult to predict. It is established early
in the trip that the sound of drums indicates the presence of the marauding
tribesmen. While the group is picking herbs, the drums sound again and it is
possible that the participants will pick up on this before either David or the
Major respond in the scripted material, and attempt to warn them. If they do,
David and the Major should be prepared to incorporate the participants'
warning, skipping dialogue if necessary. Way feels that if the actors ignore
the students' responses, they lose credibility with the participants and
audience members (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview). It is
therefore more important to acknowledge that the participants are
contributing members of the team than to follow the script to the letter.

Because it so clearly illustrates to teachers certain methods for utilizing

Creative Drama, On Trial was often used as a workshop piece following
Way's departure from the Theatre Centre. In an invited dress rehearsal
performed during his tenure at the University of Iowa in 1978-79, it was
interesting to note that the participants tended to side with whomever
happened to be their leader. In other words, David Abbott's guides

and Dr. Mac's medical team tended to support David's innocence while the
Major's military group felt that he was guilty for deserting them. Bess' team
tended to split loyalties (Children's Theatre Workshop notes).

The next two plays, The Decision, first produced in 1965 and The Island

 

produced in 1968, continue the more serious plot lines established with 9;;

Trial, but offer different forms of participation. Way dislikes any form of

62

survey or questionnaire about his work, but he did receive some feedback
from teachers that, although the play was quite successful, they felt it was a
shame that the whole audience could not take part (Wood 144-45). Way

responded with the following two plays.
Both The Decision and The Island take place in exotic locations where the

 

society has maintained a simpler existence with respect to custom, culture
and religion. In The Decision, the society is faced with the opportunity for
change, while in The Island, the society is threatened by an outside force. In
both cases, we once again see the presence of a strong leader, but in this case,
rather than possessing magical powers, the leaders rely on input from the
community and a sense of tradition in making decisions.

The Decision is Way's only play written completely in verse and contains
very little participation. In keeping with the requests of the teachers, what
participation it does employ involves the entire audience. The setting for the
play is the fictional land of Xavia. The audience is informed that they are
natives of Xavia and introduced to the customs of the country by Barsac, son
of Taki, Queen of Xavia. From Barsac, we learn the country is relatively
primitive, but self-sufficient. The primary activities are agricultural and
carving wood. In fact, the first participatory activity is for the entire audience
to carve a present for the person sitting next to them while they learn a
Siniple Xavian tune. The remaining two characters in the play are Fiesta,
Barsac's sister, and their brother, Hassin, who has just returned after several
years out in the world.

Hassin has brought back many innovations after his journey and
introduces these inventions to his family and the village. He advocates
allowing the outside world in for the growth and development of the
country. Fiesta is concerned that this growth will destroy the country she

63

loves, forever closing the "Eye," the symbol of their deity, that guards her
people. Barsac explains about the symbolic "Eye" to the audience:

For all the history of man the Eye has stared unblinking,
Protecting the people of Xavia

Upholding them with the strength of rock
From which itself is carved.

The story is told that the people of Xavia
Will always be safe - till the eye is closed.
The eye will never close, can never close,
The eye is hewn in rock.

Listen, Fiesta, listen sister.

The eye will never close,

The eye is hewn in rock (5).

The bulk of the play is Hassin's plea for growth and change, and Fiesta's
concerns for the destruction of life as she knows it. At the conclusion of the
debate, the audience, as the people of Xavia, are asked to vote for or against
change. Way initially assumed that most of the audience would vote for
change. The original ending calls for the people of Xavia to build an airstrip
to allow planes carrying supplies to land. Upon completion of the airstrip,
there is the realization that the Eye is in the direct path of the incoming
planes and will have to be torn down. Hassin asks his family if they wish to
reverse the decision, but Taki answers that once a decision is made, there is
no turning back. She comforts Fiesta by telling her that the Eye was made of
rock, but now it is a principle. She says that if the people keep their traditions
Close to their hearts, that their way of life will not end. Instead, they will now
be able to share it with the world.
The alternate ending was written when Way discovered that, particularly

in small, rural communities, the audience would often vote to keep

things as they are (Wood 147). In the alternate ending, Hassin goes to radio
the planes not to come, only to find that the radio has malfunctioned and the

planes are already on the way. Instead of a runway, the people, under Barsac's

64

guidance, clear an area and spell out "Turn Back" so that the Eye is saved.
Taki again gives the closing thoughts, and the message of the play, after the
planes have turned back:

Hassin, mend your radio

Explain to your friends our decision.
Tell them - tell them the time will come
When we shall be ready to meet them.

Fiesta, the eye will not close.

One day if the rock should come down,

Remember this. The ideas

The eye stands for will never die.

They are stronger even than rock.

For thousands of years we have built our traditions.

You must help to preserve them. Remember your
brother's words.

People all over the world envy our way of life.

We must share that way of life,

Let them feel it themselves.

We must share our art and our carving,

Our crafts and dances, stories and music.

These things the eye will stand for.

They will exist forever (33).

With both endings, the audience is divided into four groups for
participation, each led by one of the four principal characters. In the first
instance, the groups chop down trees, clear the ground and work on
completing the runway. The second ending also calls for making a clearing,
but this time, the groups move boulders into the area to spell out the message
"Turn Back." Each group is responsible for two letters. Because there has been
SO little participation up to this point, and because each actor may be working
with as many as fifty people, the participation is primarily directed, with the
aCtors instructing their groups as to what needs to be done. In his observation
of a performance of this play in 1975, Ronald Wood explains how the actors
maintained control over their groups while building the landing strip:

65

An effective technique employed by the actors was to stop
the work and gather their groups around them when
moving from one phase of the task to another, thereby
maintaining focus on the actor as the controlling factor for
the work. When the landing strip was completed the
audience settled immediately to the floor, eager to hear
the outcome of the play (284).

Although the message of the play concerning the maintaining of traditions
and the debate between the security of what is known versus the possible
improvement brought by change is interesting, The Decision offers little in
terms of experimentation in participation. Way's next offering for this age
group pushes the boundaries as to what can feasibly be done by participants
within the time frame allowed in a touring production to schools.

The Island is set on the fictional island of St. Faun during a period of
military occupation at an unspecified time during an unspecified war. The
main conflict of the play is a clash of cultures and the inability of the military
leader to accept the customs of the people of the island. As in The Decision,
there is a central leader for the people, represented once again by the
audience. In this case, however, the stakes are somewhat higher, involving
not only a possible threat to a religious symbol, but the life and death of the
inhabitants of the island.

The plot begins shortly after the occupation has taken place. Several of the
Islanders who resisted the invading army were killed or wounded. The
island, along with several others in the vicinity, has been taken over because
0f its strategic location to the mainland and its importance as a military base.
The leader of the military force is Colonel Adamson. In the opening segment
of the play, he meets with the Headman of the island, to inform him of the
new rules that must be enforced. While the meeting is civil enough, it

becomes apparent that the Colonel has no interest in learning about or

66

implementing to his advantage the customs of the island. His opinion is that
all orders shall be obeyed or else those who defy his laws will be shot, and the
Headman will be held accountable for the actions of his people. The other
characters in the play are Edith Adamson, the Colonel's wife and Samantha, a
local girl with healing powers who is suspected of being a witch. Samantha
has been ordered to act as a servant to Mrs. Adamson, but is defiant toward
the Colonel and his orders, expressing the fears of the people of the island.
Edith Adamson displays great sympathy toward the Islanders and their
customs, eventually siding with them against her husband. But she also
fulfills the role of revealing a kinder side of the Colonel, telling a story about
a tragic loss he suffered when he was a junior officer, and, as in the other
plays, removing the possibility of a clear-cut villain.

The Colonel prepares a list of laws that he orders the Headman to read to
the Islanders. Included among the laws is one forbidding the people of the
Island to gather together without the permission of the Colonel and then
only for the express purpose of hearing orders. Since a major, religious
festival is about to take place, this eliminates the possibility of that occurring.
The Headman responds to this edict by telling the Colonel, "A great poet once
said, 'The evil man does lives after him.” The Headman then leads the
audience in humming a song they had learned earlier, one that indicates
their defiance, even in defeat (19). Eventually, Edith sides with the Islanders
and decides to help them prepare for their Festival anyway. The Headman,
Who has attempted to persuade the Colonel to allow them to hold their
Festival, tells them to wait and give the Colonel a chance to reconsider.
When the Colonel learns that his wife is supporting the Islanders because she
deplores his actions, he acquiesces, and eventually joins in the preparations

himself, at the invitation of the Headman. The play ends with the

67

construction of the ceremonial masks and a procession, with a thawing of
relations between the military and the Islanders.

The play is obviously sympathetic to the plight of the Islanders, whose
entire way of life has been disrupted by a war of which they are not a part.
However, Way still makes an effort to explain the actions of Colonel
Adamson, so that he does not appear intentionally cruel, as Samantha says he
is, but merely a good soldier carrying out his orders. A good example of this is
when the Headman begins reading the "Laws for the behaviour of the people
of the Island of St. Faun." The first law is the implementation of a daily
curfew from sunset to sunrise. Once the Headman explains to Samantha

what a curfew is, she accuses the Colonel of being cruel and savage:

You mean we can no longer walk along the shore and
swim and talk under the moon and the stars? We can no
longer feel the cool of the night? Our menfolk can no
longer fish through the dark hours? Oh, it's savage,
savage, savage (15).

Once the Headman persuades the Colonel that it might help if he explained
his reasoning, the Colonel tells the people that he and his men will be
making preparations for the invasion of the mainland and that most of those
preparations must be done under cover of darkness. Since he cannot take the
risk of spies or sabotage, the only safeguard is a curfew.

Since the theme of this play is centered on the understanding of other
Cultures rather than assimilating them to our own laws and customs, it
Stands to reason that the participation is centered around the identity of the
ISland people. The first activity doesn't come until approximately halfway
through the play. The Headman, in order to explain to Samantha, and
thereby the audience, why they must do as Colonel Adamson asks, tells them

the story of another island and teaches them a song. He explains that

68

originally, the song was one of great joy, but once the island was invaded, the
Islanders would sadly hum the song and the song bound them together (12-
13). Later, after hearing Colonel Adamson's laws, the Headman leads the
audience once again in humming the song. Essentially, this is the same

message that Taki gives Fiesta in The Decision. Externals are not necessary as

 

long as each person maintains the traditions and ideals within.

The most innovative participation comes at the end of the play. Once
Colonel Adamson agrees that the Islanders may hold their Festival, the
audience is divided into groups of five. Samantha has told the history of the
Festival to Edith earlier in the piece. The Festival harkens back to ancient
times and involved a human sacrifice. The sacrificial victim was always a
volunteer. So that his friends and family couldn't dissuade him, the entire
community would put on huge masks and at the last moment, the person
would run forward. Eventually, the sacrifice was abolished, and the people
decided that only one in five would wear a mask or headpiece so that they
could protect one another. The other four would make the mask for the fifth
person (21-22). As to the participation, once the groups have been divided,
each group is given materials to construct masks. Four of each group make a
mask or headpiece for the fifth person to wear. They are only given five
minutes to construct the mask before the final procession begins. This
eliminates any lengthy discussion over how to make the "prettiest" or the
"best." Speed is of the essence. The final procession involves lining up the
mask-makers on two sides of the hall while the central characters and the
audience members who are wearing the masks parade past. The entire group
sings the song the Headman taught them earlier. At the end of the
procession, one of the cast comes forward to say that this is the end of the play

and to encourage the children to explore other aspects of life on the Island on

69

their own and through other art forms. One suggestion is that they might all
like to make their own mask or headpiece.

Way has stated that the procession, along with the chase and the journey,
are significant actions in Children's Theatre (Audience Participation 26-27).
In this case, the procession allows for a joyous, yet controlled ceremonial
ending to the play, giving the audience a chance to celebrate their victory and
recognize the Colonel's gradual acceptance of them as a people. The physical
act of the procession allows for the release of any pent up energy that may
have come about as a result of both sitting on the floor for that length of time,
and the tension of the events preceding the processional. By concluding with
the suggestion that they explore other aspects of Island life, Way is opening
the door for further Creative Dramatic activity in the classroom, which
appears to be as much a goal for Way as providing children with a theatre
experience.

There is a conscious effort to provide more complex themes for this age
group. It is interesting to note that Way, who advocates the development of
self-esteem in the child in his Creative Dramatics work, has a balance in the
casting of male and female characters, particularly for plays written in the
1960's. Conscious or not, he often places female characters in positions of
authority, most notably Dr. Pauline MacBride in On Trial. In fact, in the six
plays examined in this chapter, only The Island has a definitive male leader
in the character of the Headman. In Crossroads and The Ladder, the Spirit of
the Signpost and the Keeper of the Ladder are both somewhat ambiguous, but

referred to as female in the stage directions. The Lantern presents a balance

 

between all four characters with no definitive leader, and On Trial does
likewise, with a balance between Dr. Mac, David Abbott and the Major. Taki

is the Queen of Xavia in The Decision, enforcing the desires of her people.

70

This balance prevents the plays from being dated.

In addition to maintaining a balance of characters, several other avenues
are explored, but those that seem to get the greatest attention are Way's ever
present pacifism and the concept of retaining ideals, dreams and/ or integrity,
which is expressed to some extent in practically all of the plays. Quite often,

these two themes are intertwined, as in The Island where the Headman's

 

position is to avoid war with the occupying force by obeying their orders, but
to never forget the Islanders' heritage and strength, represented by the song
he teaches them. In fact, there is never a question of overthrowing a power,
even if it appears to be evil. Way, instead, advocates reform, making the
"powers that be" see the light. This is the premise behind Crossroads and the

Merchant's adventure in The Ladder. In neither case is anyone removed

 

from power, for it is inevitable that there is some good in all of the characters.
They are simply made to see the error of their ways. This theme appears
again in Way's trilogy plays.

The plays for the Fourth through Sixth grade students show a greater
degree of experimentation with participation techniques than the lower
elementary offerings, most significantly with On Trial with its limited

number of participants engaged in small group involvement, and The Island

 

with the inclusion of the mask-making activity at the end. In both of these
pieces, Way offers teachers an opportunity to see how Creative Dramatics

could work. In The Island Way makes suggestions for follow-up activities,

 

and the open ending of On Trial lends itself naturally to follow-up
discussions of David Abbott's guilt or innocence once the students have
returned to the classroom. Providing clear demonstrations to teachers of how
to implement creative dramatics into the classroom environment becomes

even more important to Way in the trilogy plays.

CHAPTER V
TRILOGY PLAYS ON A SINGLE THEME FOR
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Between 1966 and 1969, Brian Way became more interested in gearing plays
and the participation techniques within them towards very specific age
groups. He was also interested in increasing the connection between his
theatrical work and teaching Creative Dramatics, as well as other art forms, to
the elementary school students, while at the same time illustrating
techniques for implementing the arts into the curriculum to the classroom
teacher. With this end in mind, he further limited the age range for his plays
to three levels: one for K-2, one for grades 3-4 and the third for grades 5-6. By
doing so, he felt that he was better able to meet the needs and abilities of the
students within each specific group (Interview).

For the plays written during this period, Way utilized three works for each
season, all on the same theme. In 1966, the three "clown" plays were
produced, 1967 used the idea of a "key" as a connecting device, and 1969
produced three works based on a "faces" theme. Before proceeding with an
analysis of the plays themselves, it is beneficial to examine Way's theories
expressed in Development throw Drama on improvisation with different
age groups. Way feels that it is important with "infants" or students in
Kindergarten through First or Second Grade that everyone in the class works
at the same time in an activity that is directed by the teacher. This eliminates

fear of exposure and allows for the more timid students to follow the lead of

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those more secure. As self-confidence builds, the students will eventually
begin to respond on their own (193-198). Way emphasizes that the adult
leader should merely give verbal cues and stimuli and under no
circumstances demonstrate what the teacher feels the children should do
since this will only lead to a reliance upon the adult for illustration in all
activities, eliminating the child's potential intuitive growth (Creative
Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview). As the children move toward the
upper elementary grades, growth in the improvisation can occur in the
change of the level of conflict inherent in any given situation, and the type of
participation can include more individual or small group work that relies
upon more detailed characterization, more expansive and symbolic
movement in the form of dance and/ or dance drama, and the
incorporation of mood and emotion (216-219). This philosophy is
incorporated in the trilogy plays.

The trilogy of plays based on a "clown" theme includes Mr. Grump and the
_C_lom for Kindergarten through Second Grade, The Valley of Echoes for
Third and Fourth Grades, and The Clown for Fifth and Sixth Grades. All are
centered around the idea of a clown who has lost his laugh.

The primary focus of Mr. Grump and the Clown concerns how Mr. Grump
has stolen Clown's laugh and Clown's efforts to retrieve it. One major
change in the structure of the play for this age group is the inclusion of a
narrator who assumes a variety of roles throughout the play, and maintains
control over the majority of the rather extensive participation.

The opening of the piece was a bit experimental, allowing the children to
meet the actors before they became the characters in the play. The play
actually opens as the children enter the hall. Two of the company members,
Jenny and Claire, greet the children, help them to their seats and tell them

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that they are going to hear a story. Jenny asks the children if they would help
with the story, and then leads them through a series of Creative Dramatics
activities. This achieves two purposes. First, it serves as a warm-up activity
for the audience, introducing them to activities that they will be called on to
use later in the play. Secondly, it effectively illustrates to teachers how to lead
a Creative Dramatics activity with a class, and more importantly, how to
control it. By the mid-60$, this type of demonstration had become important
to Way (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview).

Shortly after the warm-up session, Jenny tries to begin telling the story,
only to be interrupted first by David, then by John, who produces a magic
trunk filled with different costumes. David becomes the Clown, John takes
on the role of Mr. Grump and Claire becomes Grump's daughter, Miranda.
After Mr. Grump steals Clown's laugh, Miranda offers to help Clown in
hopes that they will be able to break a spell that had been cast on Mr. Grump
and restore him to his true identity, that of a very jolly king.

There is a great deal of participation in this piece, primarily consisting of
small movements that can be performed from a seated position, or making
the sounds of such things as the wind, animals and birds. Midway through
the piece, however, Way once again includes a moment for the children to
stand and stretch by having them first curl up as small as they can, and then,
accompanied by the sound of a cymbal, grow into the big trees in the forest.
Jenny, as narrator, instructs the children to point the way for Clown and
Miranda while the breeze whispers, ”This way, this way." In order to provide
a break in the type of movement, the children all turn into birds and flap
their wings to keep Clown and Miranda from turning down the wrong path.
Finally, they turn into tired old trees that settle down on the ground for a rest.

The remainder of the participation echoes the work done at the beginning of

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the play.

This play has the heaviest participation level for this age group thus far. In
essence, the children are constantly part of the action of the play, giving this
piece the feel of an extended sound-and-motion story used in Creative
Dramatics. As is Way's trademark, there is an ebb and flow to the
participation, beginning with the simplest of activities, gradually increasing
in range until the middle of the piece, when the children grow into trees.
Any excess energy that may have developed during the course of the play is
then released with the largest movement when the children turn into birds
and flap their wings. This is followed by a gradual return to quieter activities
after the children sink back to the floor as the "tired old trees that need a rest."
While Way seeks a means of releasing energy, he is always careful not to
leave the children in an excitable state at the end of the play, realizing the
problems that this would present to the teachers as they return to the
classroom (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview). The level of
participation present in Mr. Grump and the Clown is maintained throughout
the majority of the trilogy plays.

The Valley of Echoes returns to the more traditional format for Way's
plays, eliminating the use of the narrator and, because it is for Grades 3-4,
adding a sense of mystery and adventure. Again, the amount of participation
is extensive, containing a mixture of both whole and small group
participation. There are six characters in this play, but it is feasible that it could
be performed by four actors with doubling.

Again, the premise of the piece is that Clown, who bears some resemblance
to the Tramp in Crossroads has lost his laugh. Rather than having his laugh
stolen, however, he is told by a masked, cloaked figure, "a symbol of
unearthly power" (2) who is later revealed to be the Echo King, that the

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problem lies in his having given it all away, and in order to regain it, Clown
must journey to the Valley of Echoes. To reach the Valley of Echoes, he must
pass through the Forest of Fears and climb the Mountain of Memories. The
Echo King then disappears, leaving behind a glove that Clown decides he
should return.

The next character that the Clown meets is King Doublef, king of the Forest
of Fear. By agreeing to help Clown through the Forest, Doublef sets up an
extensive section of whole audience participation. Clown is pursued by
Shadowy People, who want the Echo King's glove, so Doublef addresses the
audience as his subjects, entreating them to assist Clown in passing through
the forest and eluding the Shadowy People. The audience is involved in
every step of the journey through the Forest, becoming in turn, the trees,
spiders, fleas and insects, ants who retrieve the glove when Clown drops it,
rooks, bats and finally, at the urging of Clown, birds who build huge nests to
block out all of the light, effectively banishing the Shadowy People, allowing
Clown to escape and liberating the people of the Forest of Fear, which is then
renamed the Forest of Delight.

The participation in this section of the piece is primarily controlled by King
Doublef, through the use of vocal cues. Way points out that it is not simply
the command that will elicit a response, but the texture and tone of the voice
that will encourage participation. While Doublef should never demonstrate
what the audience is to do, he can and should paint a vocal image to
accompany the participation. As in his other works, Way points out the need
for confidence on the part of the actor.

It is important that the actor believe that the participation
will come at this point; naturally, King Doublef would
have no doubt about the immediate reaction of his
people, but if the actor doubts the audience, this may be

76

communicated through some hesitancy in his voice; in
which case the audience may well respond to this either
by not participating fully, or making it something of a
game; both of these manifestations indicate lack of belief
(The Valley of Echoes note 6a).

 

There is also a sense of urgency to this section; it is important to get Clown
through the Forest not only to escape the Shadowy People, but because if he
delays, he could lose his laugh forever. That urgency, coupled with rapidity
of the activities, creates an environment where the audience is given little
time to dwell on the participation. They merely react to each cue as it is
given. If the audience becomes too absorbed in any particular activity, they
are pulled back into focus by the imperative nature of Doublef's commands.
Because of the almost frenetic level of activity in this section of the play
(there are ten different activities in less than four pages of dialogue), Way
again works in a quieter activity before proceeding with the next section.
When Clown comes up with the idea that the birds could build nests that
would block out light and banish the shadows, Doublef insists that they work

with care:

DOUBLEF: Birds of the forest, do you hear. Build big
nests in the tops of the trees and link the nest together.
Shut out the light and the shadows will go.

CLOWN: (Anxious) Quick, quick.

DOUBLEF: No, no, not quick. Build them with care, with
care, with care. (Almost breathing the words) Yes, it's
working, it's working, it's working. Look, there's a little
gap there, try to fill it up. Another there, and there. Fill
up every gap you see. (Doublef and Clown stand still
absorbing the stillness and looking for any remaining
shadows)

CLOWN: They've gone. They've gone.

DOUBLEF: Gone. Peace. Stillness. There. (Silence) (14).

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The section ends with Doublef wanting to crown Clown as the new King
because he freed the subjects of the Forest from the Shadowy People. Clown
declines, telling Doublef that he knows his subjects better than Clown ever
could and reminding him that Clown only wants to get back his laugh.
Doublef then bids Clown farewell and leaves him to face the next part of his
journey, over the Mountain of Memories.

The audience is given a bit of a rest from activity as Clown discovers, in a
slapstick sequence, that the Mountain of Memories is made entirely out of ice.
As he struggles and fails to climb the Mountain, we are introduced to Icicle,
Queen of the Mountain of Memories. She offers to help Clown in exchange
for the glove. Clown is in a bit of a dilemma, since he had made a vow to
return the glove to its rightful owner, and attempts to bargain with Icicle,
who only wants the glove. Finally, Clown decides that if he breaks his vow,
even if he gets his laugh back, he wouldn't be able to use it. The Queen
taunts him, saying that he will never regain his laugh, but that she will
obtain the glove, anyway. She then leaves him to struggle on his own.

Initially, Clown is angry that Icicle attempted to blackmail him into giving
her the glove, and in this state, he again fails to make any headway up the
Mountain. Once he regains his composure, he remembers a time that he
rescued a cat from a tree by throwing a rope up over the branches. Since he is
still at the edge of the Forest, he calls upon the spiders to once again weave
their webs, this time into strong ropes. He then lassoes a tree stump and
begins to pull himself up the side of the Mountain. Upon reaching the tree
stump, he finds steps cut into the ice leading to a cave, and hears a cry for help
coming from inside. Clown produces a magnifying glass, and, with the help
of the audience who provide the sun's rays stretching into the glass, is able to

melt the ice around a boulder blocking the entrance to the cave. The boulder

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is moved, releasing Stalag, Leader of the Stalagmites and Stalagtites, who was
imprisoned by Icicle for cutting steps into the Mountain. Clown and Stalag
return the boulder to its original position so that Icicle will not know that
Stalag has escaped. Stalag informs Clown that his people have been enslaved
by Icicle, but with Clown's help, they can free themselves from her tyranny.
From this point on, the participation takes a different turn, changing from
whole group to small group involvement. Stalag selects six audience
members to be Stalag People and to help cut steps into the Mountain for
Clown to climb. Before they can start, they are all forced to dive under the
snow to hide as Icicle approaches with Misty, leader of the Mist people who
also happen to be the Queen's slaves. Misty informs the Queen that a
stranger has been spotted with the Stalag people. Icicle refuses to believe that
Clown has made it up the Mountain, especially since she thinks that Stalag is
still imprisoned in the cave and knows that the Stalag People would not act
without their leader, but decides to leave nothing to chance and leaves to set a
trap on the ledge for Clown. Stalag, his people and Clown emerge from
hiding and the Stalag people warm Clown, who is not used to the cold and
snow. They decide to proceed up the Mountain, cutting steps as they go, even
though the Queen is laying a trap for them. As they near the ledge, Stalag has
his people build a shelter as they devise a plan. Clown remembers being
stranded on a mountain ledge once before and signalling for help with a
mirror. He then discovers that no one on the Mountain has ever seen a
mirror before, not even the Queen. It is decided to try and signal Misty to
enlist her help in thwarting the Queen and freeing the slaves. Before they
can do that, the mist begins to clear and Clown, Stalag and his people all dive

under the snow once more to hide.

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By now, Icicle has determined that Clown must have made it up the
Mountain and that the Stalag People are helping him. She has spotted the
steps cut into the mountainside and knows that no one else would require
the steps in order to climb up. She vows to destroy the Stalag People and
orders Misty to get six of her people. When Misty states that destroying the
Stalag People is cruel, Icicle reminds her that she is also a slave and will be
destroyed if she and her people do not obey. Misty selects six people from the
audience and the Queen commands them to bring a boulder and place it on
the ledge. She then reveals her plan. She knows that Clown will not attempt
to reach the ledge unless there is mist to hide him. She decides to wait until
Clown is good and cold and will only be too glad to emerge from hiding. At
that point, the Mist People are to cover the ledge so that only the boulder is
seen. As Clown reaches up to the boulder, Icicle will reach down, pull the
glove from his hand and then push him back down the Mountain. Icicle
then orders Misty and her people to lie down and wait. At this point, Clown
and Stalag emerge from hiding, the Stalag People warm Clown once again
and Clown carefully signals Misty with the mirror. Stalag and Misty agree to
join forces and help Clown. Misty goes back to the ledge and Stalag and
Clown once again hide. Icicle puts her plan in motion and is surrounded by
the Mist people. Clown, with the help of the Stalag People, climbs up. As he
nears the ledge, he reaches up with his gloved hand, which the Queen grabs.
At that moment, Clown calls for the Mist People to clear the area and he
thrusts the mirror at Icicle. She is so transfixed by the image that she drops
the glove and takes the mirror. Clown asks her how anyone so beautiful
could be so cruel. At that point, Stalag dives for the glove, holding it up
triumphantly, and announcing the freedom of the Stalag and Mist People.

Icicle is affected by Clown's words, and, realizing her defeat, lowers the mirror

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and stands with a quiet dignity. Stalag and Misty prepare to take Icicle as their
prisoner and make slaves of all who willingly helped her, but are stopped by
Clown, who voices the political message of the play, at the same time offering

a resolution to this section of the piece.

CLOWN: Wait! Wait! Why end slavery for one lot of
people and them make slaves of others? Why can't you
all live in peace?

STALAG: Can it be done?
CLOWN: Of course it can. With a wise ruler!

STALAG: Then - you shall be King. King of the
Mountain of Memories.

CLOWN: I don't want to be King. I only want to get to
the Valley of Echoes.

ST ALAG: But - to whom do we turn for a wiseruler?

CLOWN: (To Queen) This is the Mountain of Memories.
Surely, you must remember something, anything.

QUEEN: Yes. I remember a time when people were free
here. (Misty and Stalag remember this too) I remember
when the people here were happy, and when visitors
were welcome from every part of the world. (Pause.
Then, to Clown) I didn't realise what I was doing. (With
difficulty in the revelation) I - I tried to possess
everything I saw. To make a slave of everyone I met.
(She and Clown hold eye contact for a long moment.
Then she raises the mirror again.)

CLOWN: How could anyone -

QUEEN: Iknow, I know. (She turns to Stalag, Misty and
all the people; then very simply:) If you will allow me to
remain your Queen, I will agree that all shall be free. I
shall work for the happiness of all: and we shall welcome
visitors from every part of the world (29-30).

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After a brief discussion with the Stalag and Mist People, it is decided that Icicle
shall remain Queen. Icicle thanks Clown for what he has done for her and for
all the people on the Mountain and then guides Clown to the Valley of
Echoes, telling him that as he walks through, the Echoes will answer,
becoming softer and fainter as he nears the center. At the center, there will be
no echo at all and it is there that he will find his laugh. This sets up the final
whole group participation sequence as the audience becomes the Clown's
echo. When Clown reaches the center, he once again encounters the Echo
King, who reveals that he dropped his glove on purpose, knowing that
Clown wouldn't have searched for something just for himself, but would for
someone else. He then tells Clown to keep the glove and gives him the other
one, saying that he only needed their power when "the Forest was a place of
fear and the Queen was cruel and ambitious" but Clown had changed all that
(31). As Clown puts on the gloves, he begins to laugh, and the Echo King tells
him that the Echo of his laughter will come back to him from everybody,
signalling the audience to once again become the Clown's Echo.

The participation in the second section of The Valley of Echoes returns to
the format established in On Trial with the use of small groups, leaving the
majority of the audience as spectators. According to Ronald Wood, in the
early performances of this piece, Way found that the small group
participation did not always work well since there was enough self-
consciousness in this age range to inhibit participation. Half-way through the
initial tour of this piece, the small group participation was dropped in favor
of dividing the entire audience into groups of Stalag People and Mist People
(176-177). Upon publication of the play in this country, however, Way had
reconsidered the use of small group participation for this age range,

reworking those sections and indicating in his notes how to choose

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volunteers and control their participation. As in On Trial Way specifies that
it is important that the choice of participants appears to be entirely at random.
He also strongly suggests that Stalag and Misty use clear descriptions of
individuals in choosing, rather than merely pointing to someone, so that
there will be no misunderstanding about who was chosen. In this way, the
actors can avoid having to send an individual back (The Valley of Echoes
note 24). In terms of the actual participation, all of the activities are clearly led
by either Misty or Stalag, are always done as part of the group of six, and single
individuals are never called upon for solo activities. Since it is assumed

that Stalag and Misty will choose their people from among volunteers, and
since these volunteers are protected from any type of solo performance, it is
unlikely that self-consciousness will occur. If the performance takes place in
other than a school venue, then Way suggests that the small group
participation be eliminated in favor of using adult cast members (The Valley
of Echoes production notes). While this cuts down on the amount of
participation, it eliminates pulling children into a performance situation in
front of adults and strangers, which could have a negative impact.

One aspect of this play that is a bit problematic is the participation of the
Mist People under the direction of Icicle. The participants are asked to engage
in activities that they know are intended to be harmful to Clown. Way
addresses this concern in a later work, The Opposites Machine. In that play,
the audience help create a machine that is eventually used for selfish gain.
The concern in The (onsites Machine is that the children are unaware that
the machine will cause harm, and will feel as if they have been tricked. In
The Valley of Echoes, the participants are aware of Icicle's intent and it is
feasible that they will refuse. Certain elements of the play can be used to

ensure participation, however. First, the participants are recruited by Misty

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who has been established as a sympathetic character. Secondly, it has also
been established that the Mist People are the Queen's slaves and must do as
she says. If any balk at the notion, Misty can diffuse the rebellion by making a
personal plea to help her. Finally, the amount of participation performed
solely for the Queen's benefit is minor, primarily consisting of placing a
boulder on the ledge. Eventually, the participants realize that they are to fool
the Queen and help Clown, justifying their actions.

One other possible problem area is the decision to allow Icicle to remain as
Queen. Way addresses this in his notes on participation and his description
of the character of Icicle:

The Icicle Queen appears as she speaks. She is cold, stiff,
frigid as steel. Yet, as Clown feels, there is a curious
fascination about her and one is aware of a strange energy
that could manifest itself in many forms. She does not
take her eyes off Clown for a moment (16).

Later, her remorse is heartfelt, and she accepts defeat with dignity. Because of
this, and because of Clown's persuasion and the attitudes of Stalag and Misty,
Way feels that the participants will agree to allow Icicle to remain as Queen.
If there is still hesitation on their part, then it is suggested that perhaps Icicle
be given a probationary appointment, with Stalag and Misty keeping a close
eye on her activities (note 33). This rehabilitation of an antagonist continues
a concept of redemption present in several of Way '3 previous plays.

The Valley of Echoes continues the whole group participation techniques
established in Mr. Grump and the Clown while experimenting with an early
form of small group participation. The next play in the trilogy, The Clown
takes the concept of the small group and pushes it farther, breaking the
audience into several small groups, all responsible for different activities and

who sometimes work at one and the same time. While the number of times

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the audience participates is significantly reduced, the intensity of the
participation is increased, making the entire audience a part of the cast.

The plot of The Clown is relatively simple. Once again, the focus is on a
clown who has lost his laugh, but this time the material takes a more serious
turn. In this instance, it appears that the Clown is being forced into retirement
because he is too old to continue with the strenuous routines of his younger
days. He is approached by Jane Conrad, a reporter, and Robert Giles, a
photographer who have heard of his impending retirement and want to do a
story about his life. Giles is so taken with the Clown's greatness that he
suggests filming a documentary instead. With the help of Mr. Giles, Miss
Conrad, his daughter, Maria, and the audience, Clown reenacts scenes from
his life, including his joining the circus, how he became a clown, the
development of his greatest stunt and his friendship with Jock, the
Ringmaster, and Jock's death when the circus is attempting to escape a
country locked in a civil war. At the end of the filming, a retirement party is
held for the Clown who reveals that while he is stepping down from
performance, he will be taking over as Ringmaster, in honor of his friend,
Jock. The play ends with a circus procession to celebrate Clown's career.

The first instance of participation is a combination of whole and small
group involvement. When Clown and Maria agree to the documentary, the
Clown asks the audience if they will help in the reenactment of his life. The
first order of business is to get additional reporters and photographers to assist
Jane Conrad and Robert Giles. Jane and Robert each select about six
volunteers each to write the filmscript and film the events. Robert gets his
people used to miming cameras and the idea of being film makers, while Jane
talks to her group about how writers must keep their eyes open, always
looking for the unexpected. She explains to them that, "Writing comes

85

afterward. Watching comes first" (11). As they work with their volunteers,
Maria suggests that all of the audience might be able to take photographs
during the course of the story. Clown works with the rest of the audience as
they "try out" taking photographs. This initial activity serves two purposes:
it provides a warm-up that eases the audience into the more strenuous
participation to follow and it introduces the students to the concept of
documentary film making. As stated in a previous chapter, Way had a
fascination with the art of film making, and often incorporated the concept of
film into his creative dramatics exercises. He has stated that using the device
of a camera benefits both the observer and the participant. If the observers are
given the roles of film makers, then it gives them an activity that promotes
observation of an action. On the other hand, because all of the potential
observers are involved in some form of activity that is connected to the
performance, the fear of being watched is lessened for the participants
(Creative Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview).

Following the initial warm-up activity, the six film makers and the six
reporters move into areas where they can observe and record all that happens
while the rest of the characters are assigned their roles. Robert takes on the
role of Jock, the Ringmaster, Maria becomes Mamselle Picador, the great
trapeze artist and owner of the circus and Jane becomes a general hand, doing
whatever is necessary. Under the direction of the Ringmaster and assisted by
Jane and Maria, the rest of the audience become members of the circus who
must assist in setting up for performance. The emphasis, in this case, is on
setting up the circus rather than actual performances. Each audience member
decides who he or she will be, and working all at the same time, they perform
their individual tasks. Way suggests that the tasks correspond with the roles
being played. For example, the animal trainers might be cleaning cages and

86

feeding the animals, others might be checking over costumes and props,
concession stands could be set up and food prepared, or trucks might need
unloading. Eventually, the Ringrnaster calls on everyone to help set up the
Big Top, so that groups that had been working parallel to one another now
are cooperating on a joint project. Upon completion of this task, the play
continues, illustrating how the Clown moved up from a general hand to the
position of a performer. This is followed almost immediately with another
small group activity involving fifteen to twenty participants, randomly
selected from the ranks of the workers, as circus performers who take part in
the Circus Procession, thus ending the first portion of the film.

The second section of the film illustrates to the audience how Clown
learned his most famous stunt and also developed a trust and friendship with
Jock. This section allows the audience, with the exception of the film makers
and journalists, a brief break in the participation. This is followed by a small
group participation sequence depicting the circus' flight from a war-torn
country. The audience members who took part in the earlier procession are
also involved in this section. The circus people are forced to flee in the
middle of the night, taking only what is necessary. There is a brief period of
improvisation where the participants decide what they can safely take with
them. This is followed by a journey across the frontier. The group faces two
obstacles: the need for secrecy in the escape and the rugged terrain they are to
cross. Eventually, they come to the border, only to find it guarded by two
soldiers. Jock diverts the soldiers attention while Clown leads the others to
safety, but Jock is killed as a result. Maria convinces her father that there is
nothing he can do for his friend, and that he must continue to lead the group
as they are depending upon him. This allows Clown to lead the participants

back into the audience before returning for the ending where he reveals that

87

he will now be Ringmaster. As a tribute, the entire audience participates in a
final, grand processional.

There is a great deal more freedom in the content of the participation
throughout this play. The audience participants are asked for their opinions
on what might be involved in setting up a circus and also on what would be
important to take with them when they are forced to flee the country. Way
has stated in other works that it is important to take each suggestion
seriously, even if it is ultimately not used. The participants must feel that
they are contributing members of the group, and to reject an idea out of hand
breaks the credibility the actors have worked to establish and may well inhibit
others from participating for fear of being "wrong" (Children's Theatre
Workshop notes; Interview). Individuals are also allowed the freedom to
choose what type of circus character they want to be. Way feels that it is
important to let the students decide these things for themselves. Because the
initial decisions are made in the relative safety of large group involvement,
there is little risk that a participant who can't decide will stand out. Way
stresses that it is better to let those with less self-confidence follow the lead of
fellow students than to direct them as to what they should do. Eventually, if
these types of activities are repeated, self-confidence will grow (Creative
Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview). Way also cautions the adult actors
not to be overly concerned with the detail of the participants' mimed
activities. He states that while the detail might be missing, it is absorption in
the activity that is important (Interview).

While there is certainly more freedom in the participation sequences of
this play, there are also strong elements of control throughout the piece. Jock
is established early on as a strong leader whose direction is to be followed.

This is particularly important when he must pull the audience out of a

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myriad of different activities and focus their attention on putting up the Big
Top, and when he leads the group on the journey out of the country.
A sense of urgency is also added to each of these sections. In the first, it is
necessary to get the work done for the performance that evening. Jock also
mentions the rainy weather, stating that the sooner they get to work, the
sooner they can get inside and dry off. This guarantees a steady stream of
activity. During the journey sequence, Jock has the secretive nature of the trip
as a means of keeping the participants alert, moving and quiet. The urgency
this time is the threat of being captured or killed by one of the warring
factions. Because Clown has been established as a strong and sympathetic
character, and because Jock trusts him, the group naturally follows his lead
after Jock leaves. Following both major sections of participation, Way
incorporates a processional. According to Way, the processional adds a sense
of order and ceremony that leads, as does the journey, to a definite
conclusion. In both instances in this play, the processional gives a sense of
closure and celebration: first following the hard work of setting up the circus
and to celebrate Clown's becoming a clown, and the second time as a tribute
to Jock and to celebrate Clown's promotion to Ringmaster. Way feels that
this sense of order is important to the teachers as a means of control, and ties
in with his interest in demonstrating to teachers means of utilizing creative
dramatics (Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview). While he
experimented on a limited level with this type of demonstration in the
"clown" trilogy, he pushed it to the extreme in his next sequence of plays
based on a "key" theme.

The first play in the trilogy of "key" plays is The Rainbow Box and is geared
toward children in Kindergarten through Second Grade. As in Mr. Grump
and the Clown, Way experimented with the opening of the piece, allowing

 

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the actors to meet the children before the play begins. Way indicates that the
opening of the play, which should only last six or seven minutes at most, can
be entirely improvised, although he does provide a script for casts who are
inexperienced in improvisation. In his notes that accompany the script, Way

indicates the reason for this type of opening:

The intention is simple - to make friends with a group -
possibly 200 - of young children, many of whom may not
have met these circumstances before, and at the same
time to prepare some of the groundwork of the idea of a
play, including the idea of being different people from
oneself, of dressing-up in costumes, possibly of changing
costumes, and of everybody helping with the story (1).

Not only does this type of introduction acquaint children with a theatrical
experience, but can help eliminate any fear the children might have when
suddenly confronted with theatrical elements, such as characters in masks or
exaggerated costumes. The introduction can also serve as a signal to teachers
unfamiliar with this type of production that it is perfectly all right to let the
children participate.

The premise of the The Rainbow Box is relatively simple. After the
audience has met the four actors, they become, through simple costume
additions, Prismalia, the Rainbow Queen, Raina, the Queen's messenger, Mr.
Spectrum, Keeper of Colours, and Smudge, Mr. Spectrum's assistant who,
throughout the play, will be transformed into several different characters,
with the aid of costume pieces from his property box. This box and some of
the pieces in it has been shown to the children during the introduction to the
play. As in the earlier plays for the lower elementary students, there is a
sense of magic about the entire piece, but unlike those plays, there is no
antagonist of any sort, not even one who simply needs to be reformed.

Instead, all of the characters are "rainbow makers" who work in the early

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stages of the play with the audience to create a variety of different rainbows.
In this section, Raina provides both stimulation and control by playing
rainbow music on an autoharp. As the children experiment creating
rainbows, they are gradually encouraged by Queen Prismalia to make their
own "rainbow sounds" as well (12), accompanied by Raina. Way describes

Raina's functions in his notes accompanying the play:

It is important for Raina to see her function as one of early
stimulation through sound. However, after a short while
she may be able to perceive the actual rhythm of the
youngsters and so accompany rather than lead (12).

This continues Way's philosophy that adults should not instruct the
audience in their participation, but allow it to take its own form, even with
the youngest grades.

Eventually, the participation grows in complexity, with the Queen
dividing the audience into two groups, one led by Mr. Spectrum and the
other by Smudge. The Queen gives vocal cues, Raina add stimulation on the
autoharp and Smudge and Spectrum give encouragement to their respective
groups. The first activity calls for Spectrum's group to make the sounds of
the sea, gradually growing into a storm. At the highest point of intensity,
Smudge's group creates rainbows over the waves, and the intensity of the
sound dies down. The groups then alternate functions, creating rainbows and
sounds for a variety of events: tall rainbows for waterfalls, laughing rainbows
for bubbles, and tiny rainbows for rain dripping in drains. As in the past, the
activities begin with a small simple action, in this case, painting a rainbow in
the sky, and gradually increase in both sound and motion, followed by a
gradual return to quieter activities. Way also points out once again in his
notes that the Queen, Mr. Spectrum and Smudge are all involved in vocal

stimulation of the events only and that there is no question of any

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demonstration or actual involvement (13).

When these activities are ended, the Queen leads the audience in making
one last, large rainbow over the sky, one color at a time. Way indicates that if
the audience provides sound for this, then that is fine, but if they don't, then
Raina can provide stimulation on the autoharp. It is at this point, that the
crisis of the play occurs. Smudge, who is introduced as a well-intentioned but
somewhat clumsy apprentice, is so excited by the rainbow, that he accidently
punches a hole in it, causing the colors to leak out. Smudge is a variation of
Tom in The Bell in his appeal to the audience, and is eventually able to
demonstrate that a person's brilliance does not determine his or her value.
At first, Mr. Spectrum wants to fire Smudge, but the Queen, who grows
fainter as the colors fades, tells Spectrum that he will need Smudge's help.
The rest of the play is concerned with restoring the colors to the rainbow and
in order to do that, Smudge and Mr. Spectrum must use the Rainbow Box, a
spinning contraption with seven doors, each representing a color of the
rainbow.

In order for the box to work, the audience must hum as the box spins and
then hum again as each door is opened with a specially colored key. The idea
of this was introduced in the opening of the play after the introduction of the
characters when Spectrum and Smudge checked the box to see if it was in
working order. As each door is opened the audience is asked to hum the
appropriate color, such as a yellow hum or a red hum. Way comments on

this:
There will be special humming asked for each colour, and
it will be interesting to hear whether there is any
difference in the sound made; there may well not be any
difference for the ear of the listener - this does not mean
that there is no difference in the intent of the makers (17).

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Inside each door there is a riddle for Spectrum and Smudge to solve. Five
of the doors also contain a small musical instrument that suggests some
manner of participation similar to that established with Raina and her
autoharp. The yellow door is the first to be opened, and behind the door is a
small rattle and the following riddle: "Shake and listen, blow away; Bring
back the smallest beam of light" (18). As Spectrum shakes the rattle, first
Raina, then the Queen and finally the audience all begin to float, and are all
gently blown away to the moon. Smudge, during the course of this, is
transformed into a moon man, and with his help, in a sequence of activities
similar to making magic dust in The Mirrorman, the audience is able to
create a delicate moonbeam that is brought back and placed in the box,
restoring the yellow of the rainbow. This activity returns the children, who
have floated from their seated position, back to the floor, since the first thing
they must do, under the direction of Smudge who addresses them as Moon
People, is dig gold rocks on the moon and then grind them into dust. Sound
is also incorporated in this activity when they are asked to make "moon
sounds" to create a thread upon which they then blow the golden moon dust.
Since Smudge has addressed them as Moon People, they remain so and gently
blow Raina and the Queen "back to our Kingdom - back to the Rainbow" (23).
Upon their return, Smudge has no recollection of the part he played. Way
indicates that if the children remind him, then he should acknowledge it, but
without fully recalling the experience himself (24).

Participation then alternates between single, simple activities and more
complex and involved endeavors. Restoring the color blue merely requires
the audience to make the sounds of shooting stars accompanied by a small
tambourine while Smudge attempts to catch one. Red requires the audience

to become birds while Smudge is transformed into a giant Eagle. Red is

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restored when a tiny bird plucks the tiniest red feather from over his heart
and gives it to Raina and the Queen. Indigo is perhaps one of the more
interesting activities. The children are to find shadows in the folds of their
clothing and every time they hear a triangle, they are to pluck a shadow and
sigh. Since this immediately follows being shooting stars and flying birds, it
offers a quieter activity, pulling the focus back into the play. Violet is also a
quieter activity, where Smudge is transformed into a Tramp who helps the
Queen and Raina gather petals from flowers. The audience grows into the
flowers, quiver in the breeze to drop one petal each, and then make the sound
of flowers as the petals are placed in a box. For orange, a larger movement is
required as the children become riders of "Chariots of Fire" and are returned
to their seats as the sun slowly sinks into the horizon. The final activity
involves the color green. No one can decipher the riddle, but Smudge comes
up with a solution on his own. The audience makes the sound of bubbles
and becomes creatures under the sea, who gather seaweed and moss, and then
flick the moss to Smudge, who gathers it and places it in the box.

The amount of participation in The Rainbow Box surpasses any other play
for the lower elementary age group with approximately thirty activities taking
place in about thirty-five pages of dialogue. With the participation in this
play, Way has incorporated more opportunities for suggested stimulation,
trusting the audience to participate without always being given direct
instructions. While this has always been a part of his work with the upper
grades, this is the first major occurence of this type of participation with the
lower elementary students. Because of this, Way has written extensive notes
to the actors throughout the play, as he had done in upper elementary plays
such as Crossroads and The Valley of Echoes, exhorting them to trust that the

participation will come, and to only add suggestions if necessary. An example

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of this occurs early in the piece when the characters begin to float toward the

moon. Way instructs the actors as follows:

The QUEEN needs to stay absorbed as the focal point of
experience. RAINA has already sown the seeds of
participation and needs to continue to do so through full
identification with us - no longer "I am floating" but
"We're all floating" - and similarly with the blowing.
SPECTRUM, whilst still fully absorbed as SPECTRUM,
stays detached as an external stimulator and encourager,
using the sound and his own voice and words, both for
stimulation and for control, according to the needs of the
moment (20).

In other words, the participation evolves directly from the action of the play,
and as long as the actors remain focused and absorbed in what they are doing,
the audience will be caught up in the spirit of the activity and participate. At
no time do the actors instruct the audience to "do what we do," but trust
them to find their own means of expression. This concept holds true even
during periods of more directed participation.

Two other developments in this play are the complete absence of an
antagonist and the inclusion of musical instruments as a source of
stimulation. The absence of an antagonist is a natural development,
given Way's personal philosophy of pacifism. With the exception of T_h_e_

Mirrorman, none of Way's plays have a clear cut antagonist. Instead, he

 

presents characters that are either temporarily led astray, but are reformed
through the efforts of the audience and the lead characters or characters with
different ideological backgrounds. The latter characters are present most often
in the plays for upper elementary students and Way takes great care to present

both sides of an issue and then work toward compromise, or, as in On Trial

 

at least an open discussion. In The Rainbow Box, the action of the play
evolves from a need for all of the characters to work together, a philosophy

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inherent in the act of participation itself, since it takes the assistance of the
audience to help the characters in each play toward a desired goal.

The use of instruments such as the autoharp, rattle, tambourine, whistle,
triangle and bells indicate Way's interest in incorporating other art forms
with his creative dramatics, as well as illustrating to teachers how to use such
objects as stimulation for story-telling (Interview). This interest had been
previously demonstrated with the use of art materials for making masks in
The Island and the introduction to film making in The Clown. Way
continues this type of exploration in his later plays as well, most notably in
his third trilogy piece for this age group, Balloon Faces.

The second play in the "key" trilogy, The Opposites Machine, returns to the
more traditional format, using a rather straightforward plot and abandoning
the use of small group participation. Ronald Wood attributes this to the
difficulty Way had with the small group participation with this age group in
The Vallpy of Echoes, asserting Way felt that whole group participation
would eliminate any fear of exposure for the students, and answer concerns
expressed by teachers about not involving the entire group (182-183). The
participation activities included in The Opposites Machipe have a strong tie
to Way's creative drama exercises, particularly focusing on renewal of the
senses and early socialization skills.

As in most of Way's other plays, there are four characters in The Opposites
Machine: the Magician; his housekeeper, Maria; the Professor, who is an
inventor; and his assistant, Penny. All of the characters are initially
sympathetic, until the Professor, with help from the audience, invents the
Opposites Machine. At first, the machine is beneficial, but when the Professor
tries it on himself, he turns into a mad scientist bent on destroying the world.

In keeping with the central idea of a key, the Magician manages to get the key

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to the machine away from the Professor just before it is set to blow everything
up. With the help of the audience, the Magician is able to put everything
back in order, including restoring the Professor to his former self, and then
getting rid of the machine forever.

Way includes a warm-up activity at the beginning of this play in order to
get the children used to the idea of the characters needing their assistance. In
this case, the children first meet Maria, who is busy with her household
chores. She greet the audience as her friends, and asks if they will help her
with her dusting, but in a rather unusual way. She figures that with so many
people, all that will be needed is for the audience to puff once or twice and the
dust will disappear. Almost immediately after this, we meet the Magician,
who engages Maria in a discussion concerning wasting magic on such things
as dusting. He explains his position, setting up the next section of
participation:

MAGICIAN: ...Maria, as I have told you many times, to
use magic on something like dusting would be a waste of
magic. Then, when I really need it, there will be none to
use. It is like having a bottle of lemonade. Everytime you
have a sip or a drink there is a little less in the bottle.
Soon the bottle is empty.

MARIA: Yes, master the bottle is empty. But you are full
of lemonade. That is a good fullness isn't it? Then you
fill up the bottle again.

MAGICIAN: And if there is no more to fill up with?
What then? No more anywhere. How do I fill it
then? (4)

The Magician then asks Maria if her friends will help him renew his magic,
so that his "jar of lemonade" will be full if he should need it. There are nine
items that he requires. Way points out that there needs to be a certain

97

seriousness to the activity, although it should never become overly solemn
(5). This sense of seriousness is also reflected in a certain awe with which
Maria treats her master and helps establish a trust in the leadership of the
Magician. The order of the nine items allows for a natural growth in activity,
climaxing with the largest movement and then returning to quieter activities.
The audience begins by closing their eyes and listening to the quietest sounds
and sending those sounds to the Magician. This is followed by sending the
power of hearing, the power of touch, the strength of arms, legs and finally
whole self, which involves the largest movement, the sounds of happiness,
then sadness, their favorite taste, the loveliest smell, and, in an early
socialization exercise, the power of speaking. In this last item, the children
are asked to talk quietly to the person sitting next to them about the most
exciting thing that has happened to them and then send the power of
speaking in whispers. The Magician then formally and cordially thanks
everyone for their help and then goes to lie down and rest so that "not one
particle of what you and your friends have given me will be wasted" (7). It is
interesting to note the similarity between these activities and a section in
Development Throggh Drama entitled "Using the Senses to Stimulate
Imagination." Way describes, as an example, a listening activity that begins
with listening to sounds outside, gradually bringing the listening into oneself.
Similar activities are involved with all of the senses. The conclusion of each
activity is a quiet sharing of the experience between two or three participants,
as a means of early socialization. According to Way, talking to a neighbor is
less intimidating than sharing in front of a group, reducing the fear of
failure (44-64).

As in the past, Way gives his actors specific instructions within the script

for controlling and stimulating the participation:

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Throughout what follows, the Magician needs mighty
depth of absorption, so that Maria needs mainly to be in
charge of stimulation, and of control, if any is necessary.
Naturally, the Magician can always help this factor of
control from within his own situation; he must never,
under any circumstances, come out of the situation or
character; nor, of course, should Maria. Two important
points to discover: By the quality of moment, the
Magician may find it possible to make quite clear the
moment of the completion of each of these experiences; if
he is in any doubt, the use of the word "there" will bring
the completion for the audience. Secondly, Maria should
essentially, be helping the Magician as well, but it is vital
that she in no way demonstrates to the audience how or
what to do; possibly wisest if she is sitting a little way
down one of the ailes (sic), where she cannot be so clearly
see (sic). However, this will not be possible if she is
needed as an additional stimulator - in such cases, it will
be wisest for her to start her own actions a little while after
the audience has started - and remain deeply absorbed in
what she is doing once she has started (5-6).

The second section of heavy participation involves the arrival of the
Professor, whom Way describes as a pleasant, eccentric personality. The
audience has learned a bit about him from his assistant, Penny, who described
to Maria how one of the Professor's inventions had gone out of control and
had been chasing him about his house, honking him with a pillow. The
Professor is delighted to meet the audience, now introduced as "Maria's
friends" and asks if they wouldn't mind helping him acquire some materials
for his latest invention. Way states that since there is nothing nasty about the
Professor, it is almost certain that the audience will want to help him. If the
need should arise, however, Maria and Penny can encourage the participation
(11). This stage of the participation allows for a greater degree of
individualism, even as the audience is working as a unit. Under the
Professor's guidance, the audience begins to work at their own machines,

making all types of nuts and bolts, which are collected by Penny and Maria.

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The second activity involves blowing glass tubes. The Professor then tells the
audience that he will need glass for all sorts of parts on the machine and they
are to talk over what to make with the person sitting next to them and make
something together, giving the audience a more advanced stage of a
socialization activity. Finally, working with a partner, the audience is asked
to weave a delicate thread and then join all of the strands into one
continuous thread. Finally, each person is asked to place one dew drop on the
thread and then pass it carefully along to Penny or Maria. This becomes the
basis for a mixture that will make the Opposites Machine invisible. When
the Magician learns of this, he reserves one thimbleful of the mixture,
thereby preventing the Professor from making the key to the machine
invisible.

The remainder of the participation is fairly standard whole group
participation designed to help the Magician when the machine is used for
evil purposes. These activities include dusting and saving the dust to
be used later, clogging the Opposites Machine with dust to slow down a
detonating device, sending the Magician the strength of touch so that he can
find the keyhole on the invisible machine, and concentrating to make the
machine disappear forever.

As stated earlier, having the students help the Professor build a machine
that is later used for evil purposes can be problematic. Way has commented
that this section of participation was an experiment with this age group. He
wanted to get away from clear-cut situations with this age group, as well as
completely black and white characters. At the same time, he wanted the
children to not feel any regret for having helped someone (Wood 183-184).
By presenting the Professor as a personable, if eccentric, character, the children
are inclined to want to help him. The problem is in not finding out what he

100

intends to do with the materials the audience helps him acquire. This is
pointed out after the fact by the Magician, who won't let the Professor leave
until he tells everyone what he intends to make. Even then, the concept of
the Opposites Machine doesn't seem so bad, as long as it only changes for the
good. In presenting the moral to the story, the Magician questions who is to
decide what is good and what is bad. He uses as an example changing a rainy
day to a sunny day. When Maria says that has to be a good thing, the
Magician brings up the farmer who might need the rain. The point the
Magician tries to make is that we need a balance in all things, and it is
dangerous to upset that balance.

While not as experimental as The Valley of Echoes, The Opposites
Machine does include a successful use of early socialization activities while
allowing for a certain degree of individuality within the whole group setting.
It also provides a better balance between the participatory and theatrical
elements. The third play in the "key" trilogy pushes the boundaries of
participatory techniques to the maximum, calling into question what
differentiates theatre from creative dramatics.

The Key was Way '3 biggest experiment to date in that it involved the
entire audience as part of the cast of the play for the entire hour. In many
respects, it is similar in structure to On Trial involving the entire audience

 

instead of just volunteers. The plot of the play concerns a village that is
suffering from severe drought and the journey the community takes in
search of a new home and water. The play begins when Lucy greets the
audience, tells them that they are going "to recreate one of the most difficult
and exciting adventures that any group of people have ever experienced" ( 1)
and introduces them to the situation the village is faced with, as well as

giving a bit of background on the community itself. She also introduces her

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mother, Mrs. Randall, as the head of her family and tells the audience that
several weeks ago, a group of five men went in search of water, and they had
yet to return. With the help of Mrs. Randall, Lucy divides the audience into
groups of five or six. Each group is a family unit and are given a few
moments to decide what the relationships will be within each group. After
that, Lucy and Mrs. Randall establish a watchful atmosphere, waiting for
some word from the men who left on the expedition. It is at this point that
the play begins.

Clive, a stranger to the community, enters the acting area helping Mike,
Lucy's brother. Both had gone on the expedition in search of water. As it
turns out, the other three men, all members of the Matheson family, perished
on the trip. Clive reveals that before they were forced to turn back, they did
see rain clouds forming over the mountains. He then attempts to persuade
the Randalls that it is better to uproot the community and go in search of a
better life than to stay put and wait for the rains to come. He also tells Mike
that the reason he feels so strongly about this is that his family used to live in
the community but they all died during a similar drought when he was a
baby. He has now returned to try and persuade the community that they
must leave. It is decided that they should put the matter before the people
and have them vote. Mike says that he should speak in favor of leaving.
When asked who will speak in favor of staying where they are, Clive says that
he will. Mrs. Randall is skeptical of Clive's intentions, but he tells her that he
has just seen three men die in the desert, so he is the best man to tell the
community of the dangers they will face. Both Mike and Clive present their
arguments and then entertain any possible questions from the audience
before putting the matter to a vote. Way gives the following advice to the
actors in handling questions from the audience:

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Serious questions should be taken seriously and answered
if they can be; possibly there will be some that can't be
answered. Possibly there may be some that can be referred
ahead to Clive, if they decide to go. It is important not to
force the issue of questions, nor, if they arise easily, to
keep them going for too long, particularly when there is a
large audience (11).

Way never had any doubt that the children would want to go on the journey.
According to Roger Watkins, who played Clive in the first production, the
audience got so caught up in the persuasiveness of Mike's arguments that the
majority always wanted to go. The situation seemed so urgent and
compelling that anyone who was concerned about the journey was soon
caught up in the enthusiasm for the adventure and joined in (Wood 188). It
is also feasible that Lucy plants the idea that they will be reenacting the
journey in her introduction to the piece, making the acceptance of the trip
inevitable. It should also be noted, however, that no one is forced to take part
in the journey, and if they should decide to remain behind, then that is
perfectly all right, but they are always free to change their minds. The "out" is

given to the audience members by Mike.

Very well, friends. Most of you want to go. If those of you
who have said no at this moment change your minds,
then we'll be glad to have you come with us too (11).

This is followed by introducing Clive as the leader of the expedition and the
participants setting immediately to work to prepare for the trip. It is during
this period of preparation that any students with doubts about participating
will probably join in.

The first order of business is to prepare the wagons for the trip across the
desert. Under the direction of Clive, the audience, working as family units,
cut four wheels for their wagon. Clive emphasizes the importance of

working quickly to keep the action moving. He also establishes a whistle as

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the control device that he will use throughout the journey. Way has stated
that Clive should only use the whistle in character and only as a means of
getting the attention of a large group of people who are working
independently of one another. Great care should be taken so that the whistle
does not become an instrument used by an adult to scold children, as is often
the case, particularly when the children are involved in athletic activities
(Creative Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview). In order to establish the
whistle as a control, Clive has all of the groups work in unison to put the new
wheels on the wagons. Two members of each group position and secure the
wheels to the wagon while the other family members lift the wagon. The cue
to lift a corner of the wagon is signalled by a single blast on the whistle. Since
this is repeated four times, it becomes a form of practice in response to the
whistle, and also serves to indicate that the whistle marks a change in
activity, and therefore the need to pay attention. Once this preliminary
activity is finished, the family units proceed to stretch canvas over their
wagons, gather food from their gardens, build fires, cook meat, boil water,
load the wagons and groom the horses in preparation for the journey. Clive
continues to stimulate this participation, only using the whistle if necessary
to move on to another activity.

Since this section has involved fairly active, physical participation, Way
follows it with a section that requires care and sensitivity. Clive explains to
the participants the importance of properly storing the water:

Now the most important thing of all. Sit down and listen.
I've seen people die in some pretty grim ways. Thirst is
probably the grimmest. For the time ahead of us, the most
precious thing in our lives will be water. So - in a
moment you're going to pour the water that's boiling on

your fires into one container for your family. When
you've done it, pass the container very carefully - try not

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to spill one drop - to the wagon in front of you, and they'll
pass it to the one in front of them, until all of the
containers are down in the front here. Mrs. Randall, Mike
and Lucy, you will then store them in this box at the back
of your wagon. Right - carefully as you can, fill up your
containers now. Go to it (13).

Establishing the importance of water for the journey, coupled with a feeling
of community that has been developed from the beginning of the piece,
provides a natural control over this quieter section of participation. Once all
of the water has been collected, Clive explains that it will all be padlocked in
one wagon and be doled out in equal rations once or twice a day and that he
will have the only key to the lock. Questions about the wisdom of carrying
the water in this manner are put forth by the Randalls and all are answered by
Clive, so that this does not seem an arbitrary decision, but one based on
experience and forethought, helping to establish Clive as a firm, but fair
leader. Once the water has been taken care of, the company is ready to begin
the trek.

For the most part, the journey is relatively easy to control, since each
"family" is seated together on the floor while traveling in their "wagon."
Again, there is a balance in the type of activities and crises the groups face.
The first major event is a sandstorm, requiring the participants to tie the
canvas down as tightly and as quickly as possible, blocking out every gap and
to cover the horses' eyes so that they won't panic. The horses become a form
of control at this point. Clive tells the participants, "You must keep calm. If
the horses sense you're frightened, they'll bolt and kill the lot of us" (16).
This ensures a serious earnestness to the activity rather than a frenzied
excitement. Clive ends this activity with everyone getting down with their
heads between their knees and their arms and hands over their heads. The

storm can be achieved in one of two ways. The first involves the use of

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music that builds in intensity and then fades out, indicating the end of the
storm. The second, and this is Way's preference, is without any external
signals at all. Way feels that if the actors focus their energies on keeping
under cover and trying to block out the sand, that the audience will do
likewise. The actor playing Clive should be able to sense when the activity
has gone on long enough, and emerge from cover, signalling to the others
that the storm is over (16). After the storm has passed, everyone works
rapidly to clear out all of the sand and dig out the wagons, allowing for a
natural release of tension that was built up during the sandstorm. This is
followed by another brief period of travel, pulling the participants back into
their organized groups, allowing for focus on the next activity.

The next major activity requires a great deal of attention and care, and is
therefore preceeded by the careful doling out of the first ration of water,
reestablishing a sensitive atmosphere, similar to that established during the
initial collection and storing of water. After this, it is suggested that everyone
get some rest before proceeding. During this interlude, Clive discusses with
Mike the next problem. In order to avoid leading the group past the bodies of
the Matheson boys, Clive has taken a different route. To avoid adding any
additional time to the journey, the group will need to cross a ravine.
Working together, Mike and Clive come up with a way to construct a bridge
that will accomodate people, horses and wagons. The unusual solution is a
human bridge.

The bridge is constructed by securing imaginary ropes across the ravine
approximately six inches apart. Six volunteers then inch their way face down
across the ropes, hanging on to one side with their hands and the other with
their feet, until they are evenly spaced across the twelve—foot gap. The actors

then pantomime covering the volunteers with tarps, which are then covered

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with sand. It is explained that this will keep them from being crushed by the
wagons and horses. Finally, Clive pantomimes leading the Randall's wagon
across the bridge. Lucy and Mrs. Randall control the wagon from behind and
Clive leads the horses, keeping them calm. Mike, who crossed over initially
in order to secure ropes, guides the group across. After the first successful
crossing, in effect demonstrated by the cast members, more bridges are
constructed and one by one, the participants cross over the ravine.

Control for this section is established in several ways. The most important
is the absorption of the cast in making the first crossing. Watkins stated that
this potentially difficult section was never a problem in performance because
the cast built the first bridge with complete seriousness (Wood 188). While
Way does not normally advocate any type of demonstration, in this case, the
purpose is to alleviate any fear a participant might have about being exposed
as the first to cross. By having the cast cross over first, and then building
several more bridges that allow more than one group to cross at a time, this
problem is resolved (Interview).

One other potential problem is the physical risk to the volunteers who
make up the bridges. During the building, care is taken to leave space
between each body. When crossing the bridge, the cast is careful to step
between the prone bodies, emphasizing that only 'horses and wagons" cross
over the humans. In addition to this, Clive once again emphasizes the need
to keep the horses calm. This is achieved by everyone being very quiet and
moving slowly and deliberately. One person leads the horses while the
others prevent the wagon from rolling too fast on the descent and then
pushing up the final portion of the bridge. Focusing the effort on keeping the
horses calm and controlling the wagons prevents participants from moving
too quickly and possibly hurting someone.

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At the end of this sequence, there is a final confrontation between Mike
and Clive after Mike's sister, Lucy collapses. Mike wants the key in order to
give her water, but Clive prevails, emphasizing one of the themes of the play,

that of man's responsibility to his community.

Now, get it clear. There'll be no more water till I say so.
D'you think you're the only ones in need of water? Half
the community are in the same state. Our next ration will
be our last - and we can't have it yet.... Make sense, Mike.
For heaven's sake. One moment you're ready to sacrifice
your life for the community - the next you'll kill the
community for one person (31).

Clive then tells Mike that the Mathesons sacrificed themselves by giving up
their water for Mike when he was delirious. It was also the Mathesons who
encouraged Clive to move the community as a whole and to ration the water.
At this point, it begins to rain. Clive then moves out of the scene and

addresses the audience:

And that is as far as we can take the story today. But we
hope that within your own drama and writing and
painting you may like to finish the story for yourselves -
and so cross the mountain and build new homes and
shops, and start a new community (32).

As in The Island, where a company member tells the audience that it is hoped
they will explore other aspects of life on the Island in their artwork, perhaps
making more masks, this ending illustrates Way's desire to use his plays as
an impetus for further creative dramatics work in the classroom setting.

The play is essentially an extended creative drama session with two
hundred participants, effectively illustrating to teachers how to control this
type of activity. It was not, however, without its critics. Watkins, while
acknowledging the success of the participation in performance, felt that the

extent of the participation reduced the impact of the theatre experience, since

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the audience's activities made it difficult to maintain a central focus on the
actors (Wood 188). Way's long-time collaborator, Margaret F aulkes, reacted
quite strongly against the play for this same reason. She wrote to Way from
Canada, expressing concern that the balance of his work had shifted towards
creative drama and away from providing young audiences with a theatrical
experience (189). Way did not attempt this extensive participation again, but
he did continue to experiment in his third trilogy of plays, the last in his long
series of plays for the elementary schools (193).

The first play in the trilogy on a "faces" theme, while not experimenting
with the amount of participation, does attempt to discover a new way of
opening a play and offers further experimentation into the use of sound and
music as stimuli and control devices, establishing a link to music education.
It also experiments with a ritual element that is present from the earliest
moments of the play. Other than the elements mentioned, Balloon Faces is
strikingly similar to The Rainbow Box both in content and structure.

In his opening notes on the play, Way comments on his experimentation
with the openings in the plays for this age group:

This play is deliberately trying to find a new way of
opening a play for young children - neither better nor
worse, but different and part of a long process of
experiment. Part of the experiment is to have only one
person doing the seating....lt is possibly wisest to let them
all come and sit in a circle without any reference to the
gangway lines, then when all are seated to share with

them the need for ways into the circle and get them to
find means of cooperation for achieving this (2).

Beginning the participation at this point helps establish the concept of
cooperative involvement that will be necessary later on in the play.
The character who meets the children is Eileen, a young girl who

establishes the same type of connection with the audience as Tom in The Bell.

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As soon as the children have been seated and the aisles have been established,
Eileen informs the audience that the other people in the story will soon be
coming, but that they must be drawn into the acting area by the children. This
establishes the beginning of the ritual activity. The children use their arms
and fingers to draw the characters, one at a time, into the area. After each
character comes into the area, there is a brief period of introduction before the
next character is drawn in. The other characters are EeneeMeeneeMinee, who
is really three different characters in one, Bella, the Balloon lady, and Mr.
Pluck, the Instrument Man. Mr. Pluck carries some type of a simple tray / table
that can be easily transported or set up in a stationary position, depending
upon the needs at the time. The tray contains Mr. Pluck's instruments,
including either an Orff glockenspiel or xylophone, a simple shaker, a drum
and a simple string instrument. It is in the introduction of Mr. Pluck that the
next participation segment is established.

Eileen explains that Mr. Pluck has music for all occasions, "music for
singing and dancing. Music for being happy or sad. Music that tells a story.
And music that tells us what to do" (8). She explains further that Mr. Pluck
carries all of his instruments with him all the time just in case he should
need them. Then, with his permission, Eileen begins to tap out a time beat on
the drum while Mr. Pluck nods his head to the rhythm. Eileen pulls the
entire audience into the activity by making music "for heads to nod." This is
followed by music for dancing fingers, then for dancing arms. At this point
Mr. Pluck takes over, making music for the head arms and fingers all at once,
followed by the whole body dancing while remaining seated. This final dance
is also accompanied by a song sung by Mr. Pluck. In addition to serving as a
warm-up for the audience, this exercise has a direct connection to the

music education theories of Carl Orff and Emile Jacques-Dalcroze, and

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therefore served as an illustration to teachers the means for incorporating
music education into the creative drama experience.

Immediately following this section, Eileen asks Mr. Pluck if he will help
her by playing some of his special, magic music. She explains that she has
asked Bella for a balloon with a face, but Bella had said that she doesn't make
them anymore. Bella did promise to see if she could find one. Eileen hopes
that the magic music might also help. When Mr. Pluck plays, Bella is drawn
back to the center, and this time she has the balloon that Eileen simply names
"Face." Eileen treats Face as a trusted friend and confidant, in much the same
manner that Tom treats his bear, Wag, in The Bell. Eileen takes Face home
with her, and Bella discovers that Mr. Pluck was responsible for her
discovering the balloon with a face. At first she is displeased, but eventually
reveals that the reason she stopped making balloons with faces was because
she had to put up with EeneeMeeneeMinee, who is the spirit of the Balloons
with Faces. Since EeneeMeneeMinee changed personalities so often, he kept
Bella completely bewildered until she finally stopped making the balloons.
Mr. Pluck assures Bella that Eileen won't mind EeneeMeneeMinee one bit,
but just in case, they should all be ready to help her with music. This sets up
the next section of participation.

Mr. Pluck produces a brightly colored trolley car that is loaded down with a
variety of homemade instruments that he and Bella hand out to the children.
Way gives very explicit instructions as to controlling and distributing these
instruments in his notes to the actors. First, he insists that Mr. Pluck establish
a control using his tambourine and having the children clap their hands
prior to handing out the instruments. This is crucial if chaos is to be avoided.
Secondly, he has Bella and Mr. Pluck, always in character, give the simplest
shakers to the youngest participants, the more complicated plucking

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instruments to the oldest children and a variety of shakers and tappers to the
middle group. These divisions of shakers, tappers and pluckers are used later
to divide the audience into sections. Also, during the course of handing out
the instruments, Way suggests that Bella and Mr. Pluck encourage the
children to try out the instruments. Way states, "'Ihis will not only give
everybody something positive to do, but will also mean that the major
exploration has been achieved before the story continues" ( 17). As a practice
session, Mr. Pluck leads the group, using his tambourine as a control, in
creating music to make Bella's balloons dance. Since Mr. Pluck had done this
very thing himself earlier, it reaffirms the magical potential of the music.
This entire section, from the beginning of handing out the instruments to the
end of the experimentation with making the balloons dance, is only meant to
last five minutes. Way comments on this in his notes to the actors,
expressing some of his own disappointment that more time cannot be

devoted to the creative dramatics experience:

Like so many other experiments in audience participation, this
means tremendous self-discipline by the cast, because we simply
do not have the time to pursue a class-drama creative music
session. It would be interesting to help a discovery of high notes
and low notes, of scale, of time-beat, rhythm and climax; and
even more detail of mood and atmosphere, not to mention
becoming different shapes or different people or in different
situation, all according to the sounds made; it would be exciting
to evolve links between the instruments' sounds and possible
vocal sounds ..... indeed a whole exciting session, the length of the
play itself, could take place ..... b ut it must not, if we are to stick to
necessary time factors. Whatever final approaches are evolved
must be disciplined within the time structure (18).

The majority of the remaining participation involves the use of the
instruments to help Eileen and her friends. It is discovered that the air is
slowly leaking out of all the balloons. In order to prevent this from

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happening, they must journey, with EeneeMeeneeMinee as guide to the
Balloon Land on the dark side of the moon. At various times, the children
provide the sounds for a space flight, allowing for a loud burst of sound;
footstep music for walking on a rainbow, for a more controlled time-beat; and
floating music as they all float to the moon, giving the opportunity for more
delicate sounds. There is a connection to The Rainbow Box when they are
climbing over the rainbow. At one point, Eileen looks at the rainbow and
mentions that it appears to be fading, but nothing more is said since they
must press on. Once on the moon, the visitors are able to see the flag and the
footsteps left there by the astronauts, a timely reference since this first toured
elementary schools in the fall of 1969.

Following these activities, there is a return to some of Way's more
traditional participatory techniques. Everyone hides from moon monsters by
keeping quite still until they have passed. Then, on a cue from Mr. Pluck, the
participants all make a single loud sound to frighten the monsters away,
again allowing for a release of energy. In order to see where they are going on
the dark side of the moon, the Minee personality of EeneeMeeneeMinee
directs everyone to pick two bright moonrocks and grind them into dust
while Mr. Pluck‘provides grinding music and sings a simple song.
Eventually, everyone joins him in his singing. Finally, they all gently blow
the dust toward the dark side of the moon in order to light the way. In order
to enter the Land of Balloons, everyone changes into a balloon. Way has
commented that while originally, the children were encouraged to grow into
any type of balloon they wished, it was eventually found to be better to have
them grow into round, fat balloons in order to keep the audience seated.
Otherwise, they tended to float about the space (31; Interview). At any rate, in

case some of the "balloons" do float about, the next activity calls for them all

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to slowly deflate. Fortunately, Mr. Pluck finds a moonreed once the audience
blows away all of the dust that has settled, and by playing on the moonreed,
the air is restored to all of the balloons. Bella then instructs the balloons to
stay very still while Mr. Pluck makes special sounds to create faces on all of
the balloons. The faces suggested by Bella are bright, comic faces followed by
mischievous, wicked faces and finally any kind of face the balloons want to
make. Way has stated that it is easier for children, and places considerably
less pressure upon them, if they are asked to become something silly or
wicked rather than something beautiful or good. If they choose to become the
latter, then that option is open by allowing them to turn into anything they so
desire after first experimenting with the less stressful faces (Creative
Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview). With everything restored, the
children help the four characters return to earth by playing "back to earth"
magic music. Even the final collection of instruments is done as an activity.
It is decided that the magic music should be kept a secret just in case they
should ever need it again. Mr. Pluck whispers to the audience,

Everyone - very secretly, trying not to make a sound, pass
your instruments down to us so that we can put them
back on the trolley (35).

The play ends with all of the characters calling out their thanks to the
audience for all of their help.

As in The Rainbow Box, Balloon Faces is less concerned with plot and
focuses more on providing opportunities for participation. In this case,
however, there is a more direct connection to music education. This

connection, coupled with the use of visual arts, extends into the second play

in the trilogy, Magical Faces.

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Magical Faces follows a more traditional format, similar to the structure
presented in The Opposites Machine. The setting of the play is a town where
smiles and laughter are forbidden, and anyone caught smiling or laughing is
sent to prison. As the children enter the hall, they are greeted by signs
proclaiming the laws of the town, such as "No Smiling" or "Laughter is
Forbidden." The children are greeted by Ticklelaff, the Spirit of Laughter,
who cautions them to be careful, at the same time reassuring them that she is
there to help them. We then meet the rulers of the town, Mr. and Mrs.
Gravity, and their young assistant and heir apparent, Paul. All three are hard-
working, serious minded people with no use for mirth. Problems arise when
Paul wakes up one morning and instead of greeting Mrs. Gravity with the
traditional "Grave morning to you," he wishes her a "very good morning,
indeed" (4). It turns out that he had a dream of a town where people smiled
and laughed, and where he had done the same. He confesses to Mrs. Gravity
that he "liked the taste of it." According to law, he is to be imprisoned, but
Mr. and Mrs. Gravity decide to allow him a chance to change his mind about
laughter and to offer them proof. With Ticklelaff's help, and with the help of
the audience, Paul builds a "Monument to Laughter," which the Gravitys
think is meant to warn people of the evils of smiling and laughing. Paul and
the audience manage to trick the Gravitys, letting them experience the joy of
smiling and laughing.

The activities all involve whole group participation, although one group
at times may be providing the stimulus for another group, and have all
been seen in one form or another in Way's earlier plays. The first controlled
activity comes almost halfway through the play, when the audience helps
Ticklelaff with her magic by laughing gently. Since Ticklelaff befriended the
audience from the beginning of the play, and established herself as their ally,

115

obtaining their assistance should not be a problem at this point. The
children's laughter has helped Ticklelaff to produce a trolley loaded with
homemade musical instruments, essentially the same instruments used in
Balloon Faces with the addition of small bells. According to Ronald Wood,
these bells, which were fastened on a bracelet, were also originally used in

Balloon Faces, but were discontinued early on in the run because,

It was from these bells that Way learned exactly how
much movement goes on in an audience of young
children, even in an audience that is paying attention and
basically sitting still (195-196).

Because the children are older, and due to the nature of the directions given,
the bells are included once again in Magical Faces.

Paul and Ticklelaff quickly pass out the instruments, and as in [3.411%
13333;}, encourage the children to experiment with the sounds the instruments
make. Once this is done, Ticklelaff again takes control, saying they must try
the different kinds of magic which the music can help them with. The first
musical activity involves gently playing the instruments to make eerie,
haunting music. While playing the music, the participants make strange,
ugly ghostly faces. The last step in this activity involves adding ghostly vocals
to the music and the faces. Ticklelaff then establishes the control for this
activity by telling them that when she claps her hands, all the sounds cease
and the faces return to normal once again. Because a need for secrecy in order
to prevent Mr. and Mrs. Gravity from discovering what they are doing, has
been established and because the children have been asked to play eerie
music, Ticklelaff should have no problem being heard and establishing
control. At the end of this section, the Gravitys enter again, and Ticklelaff
tells everyone to quickly hide their instruments and look glum again. The
need to hide the instruments should prevent the bells from j ingling

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throughout the next section of dialogue, where Paul explains his idea of
building a "Monument to Laughter" to the Gravitys.

After the Gravitys leave, Ticklelaff leads the audience in the second
activity, which is a variation of the first one. In this case, all of the people
who have shakers are asked to gently shake their instruments while
everyone else, leaving their instruments on the floor, slowly grow into
strange and terrifying monsters. Continuing in the same vein, and without
being too strong, the monsters add vocalization to their creatures. When
Ticklelaff claps her hands, all sound and activity stops and the participants
become themselves again, hiding their instruments as the Gravitys enter
once more. Both of these activities are repeated in order to show the Gravitys
the monument. Paul has the Gravitys close their eyes, which they do under
protest, and first the ghostly faces are made. This time, however, Ticklelaff
tells everyone to freeze on her signal, being careful not to move a muscle,
even when the Gravitys come to look at them. After this part of the
monument has been examined, the Gravitys close their eyes once again and
the monsters are created, freezing on Ticklelaff's signal. After inspecting the
work, the Gravitys start to leave so that Paul can continue his work. Ticklelaff
signals once again for everyone to sit.

The next major activity involves the creation of masks that will add a
surprise to the otherwise gloomy monument that the Gravitys think Paul is
creating. Before this section, Ticklelaff first rehearses the people with bells and
pluckers in playing their instruments on cue, telling them to be ready
whenever they hear her call for them to play. She then leaves Paul to quickly
divide the audience into groups of four while she goes and returns with mask
supplies. When she returns, she also brings an instrument, possibly a cymbal,

which she sounds. She then addresses the audience:

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In a moment, three in every four of you, are going to
make a mask on that fourth person. Quietly decide who is
going to wear the mask. Now - that person stand up. The
person who is going to wear the mask - stand up. Don't
move from where you are. Look - we're going to bring to
each group the following things. A basic mask. Some
raffia for tying the mask on. More raffia for hair or beards
or whatever you like. Coloured sticky paper for
decorating the mask as gaily and as magically as you like.
The person standing will wear the mask - the other three
help to decorate it. And - sssh. Look after your
instruments carefully. Ssssssh. We don't have too much

time before they come back. And they aren't far off. If I
want you all to listen to me, I'll make this sound. (And
again she uses the instrument she used on her return
with the materials) (24).

This section clearly illustrates several of Way's techniques for controlling
activity, controls that are also incorporated in his creative dramatics sessions.
The first is in the division into groups of four. First, because there is an
urgency to the action, there is no time to "choose sides," leaving some
children feeling excluded. In addition, Paul instructs them to divide, "Quietly
into groups of four. Sitting where you are" (24) eliminating any inclination
the children might have to get up and move about to locate their best friends.
Ticklelaff then returns and quickly explains that three people are going to
make a mask for the fourth person to wear. This accomplishes two purposes.
First and foremost, it indicates that everyone will be involved in one way or
another in the upcoming activity. Secondly, by explaining the activity first, it
eliminates any apprehension that the fourth person might have felt had
Ticklelaff merely asked for one volunteer from each group. One other thing
that Way does in this section is have the person who will wear the mask
stand. This ensures that only one person in each group thinks that he or she
will be wearing the mask. If more than one person stands, the matter can be
resolved with Ticklelaff's or Paul's help. The materials for making the masks

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are then handed to the people standing who in turn will hand them to the
mask-makers. This is a technique that Way started using in his creative
dramatics work. He often found that if he asked children working with
partners to decide who was "A" and who was "B" that they might both think
they were to be "A" and / or "B." He therefore would have all of the "A's"
raise their hands and then all of the "B's" raise theirs. He explained that
while this might seem a simple thing for adults to do, children sometimes in
their eagerness would want to be all things, much like Bottom the Weaver
(Creative Dramatics Workshop notes; Interview).

The final control measure that Way incorporates into this exercise is
simply having Ticklelaff show each of the items for the masks and explain
what the items are and how they might be used. The materials themselves
are simple to use, with precut masks with slits for eyes, nose and mouth, that
have holes punched around the outside for tying the raffia, and gummed
paper that can be stuck on in any manner without additional glue. This
eliminates the need for scissors and glue, which would undoubtedly leave a
mess, and must be handed out and then collected. Since time is of the
essence, the masks need to be built as simply as possible.

Once the masks are built, the participation is continuous. First, Paul
reconstructs the monument while Ticklelaff keeps watch. Those with masks
turn their backs to the center while the others, again using their instruments,
become either the ghostly faces or grow into monsters, with the choice being
theirs. Once the Gravitys have reentered, Ticklelaff gives a signal and the
people with masks turn around. Everyone plays their instruments, turning
into comic statues. Those with bells and pluckers then play their music,
imprisoning Mr. and Mrs. Gravity in a "cobweb of magic" (26). Ticklelaff tells
Paul that they need to let Mr. and Mrs. Gravity taste laughter in a dream, as

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Paul had done. In order to do that, Paul and Ticklelaff dance the magic
laughter dance, with the music provided by the audience. This segment
introduces the children to the idea of improvised dance, if not directly
involving them in it. Finally, near the climax of the dance, Ticklelaff urges
everyone to laugh. The laughter and movement build to climax and then
stop. Way indicates that if Paul and Ticklelaff are suddenly still, that usually
the audience becomes quiet as well. If not, Way suggests that Ticklelaff pull
the focus back to the Gravitys simply by saying "Look!" (27; note 23) Of
course, as with most of Way's antagonists, the Gravitys are now reformed,
and the audience helps them laugh by gently laughing with them, and
growing into statues of laughter, delight and fun, bringing the play to its
conclusion. Ticklelaff has disappeared by the end, presumably off to help
others in need, and so Paul simply thanks the participants for their help,
asking them to please leave the instruments in the boxes on their way out but
telling them to please keep the masks if they so desire.

The third play in the trilogy, Adventure Faces, also incorporates the use of
masks and mask-making and includes a further exploration of stylized
movement that was introduced in Liagical Faces. As in the other plays for

 

this age group, the play deals with a more serious subject, containing more
inherent dramatic tension and conflict. Unlike The Key, the previous trilogy
play for this age group, this piece does not include audience participation
until the very end, although the seeds for the activity are introduced early on.
The plot revolves around Charles, an aging Carnival King, his wife Mary

and their daughter Jeannie, who are about to be evicted after the land they
have leased for many years is purchased by a large corporation that intends to
build a large amusement park and hotel complex on the site. Before leaving,

they decide to stage for the final time, their annual "Carnival of the Seasons."

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A former apprentice and protegee, Nicky Hogg, returns to perform in the
Carnival, but it is soon discovered that it was his corporation that bought the
land and he is the one evicting them. When the "Carnival of the Seasons" is
finally performed, there is concern that Charles might actually kill Nicky in
the final fight when winter kills summer, but the play ends peacefully.
Nicky's position is explained and it is decided that the four shall spend the
next two weeks together as a sort of holiday and perhaps figure out a way to
help Charles.

In Audience Participation, Way states that this play, more than any other
for this age group, is designed to reveal a more fully conscious awareness of
theatre that exists among older students (132). Since the setting of the play is
so overtly theatrical, with the "King Charles" troupe of performers bearing a
striking resemblance to a commedia company, the audience is allowed to see
and participate in the behind-the-scenes aspects of performance. The play
opens with Mary and Jeannie packing a trunk, repairing costumes and
playing with several elaborate masks. Later in the play, the audience is able to
witness a bit of a rehearsal for the final performance, and finally, they are
included in the final dance drama, which includes the building and wearing
of masks.

In addition to providing an illustration of a form of theatrical life, this
piece also presents a more serious theme, which it handles on a symbolic
level. The "Carnival of the Seasons" that is performed near the end of the
play is a symbolic representation of the passing of the seasons.

Each season is tied to an element: fire, water, air or earth There are also
colors and certain characters, represented through masks, that are
associated with each season. In his notes on the play (1), Way provides the

following chart, illustrating the connection of all these elements:

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SEASON ELEMENT COLORS MASKS

Summer Fire Reds and Devils and
purples witches
Autumn Water Russet, green Monsters,
brown, etc. sea creatures
Winter Air Whites, blues Sprites,
greys spirits, etc.
Spring Earth Greens, Trolls and

yellow, etc. earthy creatures
The four central characters all wear masks representing one of the four
seasons: Nicky is Summer, Mary is Autumn, Winter is portrayed by Charles
and Jeannie takes on the role of Spring. In the symbolic dance drama, each
season progresses through a cycle, strengthening and then pushing out the
season that preceeded it, until it, too, is usurped from its position of power by
the next season. In the climax of the piece, there is a great fight between
summer and winter, with winter eventually killing summer. In essence, the
same type of evolution has occurred in the relationship between Nicky and
Charles. Nicky was once Charles' student, but he has now risen to the top of
his profession, buying up land and promoting other avenues of
entertainment for the masses, while Charles represents an old, dying breed of
entertainer. After their confrontation, when Charles has discovered that
Nicky purchased the land, Charles asks Nicky,

CHARLES: Am I all washed up? Is this the end of King
Charles, the Carnival King? Is it?
NICKY: The world changes all the time.

CHARLES: Meaning what?

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NICKY: People have different ways ofenjoying
themselves - Television, Bingo, FunPalaces, Pin
Machines, One-armed bandits - they don't go to the things
they used to do, like music halls and circuses and the
cinema and the theatre and so on. It's a different world,
Charles. We've got to face it.

CHARLES: I can face that. So another question?
NICKY: Well?

CHARLES: Could I change? Could I make anything of
life in this new world? (21)

After the "Carnival of the Seasons," Charles asks Nicky if it was worth
coming back, and Nicky acknowledges that it was. Charles has come to see
the value in change and Nicky once again sees the value of tradition,
indicating that a compromise may be possible. The ending, as in several of
Way's other plays for this age group, is left open, in the hopes that further
discussion of "what happens next" will occur once the children have
returned to the classroom.

In terms of the participation in this piece, even though it does not occur
until the end of the play, it is still fairly complex. Practice for the
participation occurs midway through the play, but the idea is planted earlier
in the audience's mind when Nicky first arrives, and Charles recounts how
they divide the audience into four groups, each reflecting a season. Once the
four actors are in costume, excluding the masks, they each take a portion of
the audience and work with their individual groups, having them create
sounds that reflect the season they are to portray. While the groups make the
sounds, the actors practice their movements. Way emphasizes the need for
the actors to work with their groups, allowing the children to practice and
explore the type and volume of sound to fit the actor's movements (15). The

entire practice session should only last four to five minutes.

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The time factor works as a control device for this practice session since it
has been established early in the play that it is almost time for the
presentation to begin, especially considering that eviction from the premises
is imminent. In terms of controlling the level of vocal participation, Way's
intention is for the movement itself to provide a form of control. In other
words, the vocal sounds should serve as stimuli for the movement and the
movement can also serve as a stimulus for the vocal sounds. In order to
prevent any embarrassment at being watched by the other groups, Way has
each of the four actors go to the corners of the hall so that the participants are
sitting with their backs toward the center for the practice session (15).

The major section of participation comes after the confrontation between
Nicky and Charles. Before dividing the groups again, Charles rehearses using
a cymbal as a control device. The procedure is to have the entire audience
make sounds at the same time, perhaps adding some movement as well, and
then freezing on the cue from the cymbal (Creative Dramatics Workshop
notes; Interview). Once this has been established, the group is broken into
four once again, this time with the children sitting in the corner facing out.
As in the two other plays that incorporate mask making, the groups further
divide into smaller groups of four, one to wear a mask that the other three
will make, with the selection procedure following the same lines as before.
After a brief rehearsal, those who wear the masks join the actors in the
movement portion of the Carnival of Seasons while the rest of the audience
provides the vocal sounds that accompany the dance.

It had been Way's intention to introduce stylized movement to this age
group with Adventure Faces. There were some problems in the execution of
this during the first year the play toured. Ronald Wood quotes Way on this

problem:

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It didn't work because, although we felt and hoped that
the use of the mask would cover the main area that needs
to be covered from the self conscious point of view, and
would help to release and free them, we were not finding
the right means in such a little time. There was also the
problem of finding the right actors to do it well and get it
really free. So, we were either having to structure it rather
heavily; in which case it wasn't free, and was rather
burdened and didn't mean too much, or else we would
have to find a way to stimulate something to get it going,
in which case it often became license rather than

freedom (200).

In his later writings, Way feels that this type of participation is still viable
with this particular age group, especially if there are fewer time constraints
placed upon the participants. In Audience Participation, Way states,

The self-consciousness factor needs time and fuller
rehearsal in order to be fully overcome. The unconscious
and intuitive leanings towards mastery of a fascinating

problem also needs more time for rehearsal. The fullest
use of an approach to ritual with as many as 200
youngsters needs a great deal of organization. But, again,
for groups that are fortunate enough not to be beset by the
heavier time pressures, there is a great deal of
experimental work that needs to be done with
participation that involves some use of art work (132).

These trilogy plays mark a heavier period of experimentation for Way. In
examining the three plays for Kindergarten through Second Grade, one can
see certain trends in the work. The first area of
experimentation in these three plays is in the means of opening a play for this
age group. Way moved from an introduction of the actors who tell the
audience that they are going to tell a story in Mr. Gmp and the Clown, with
the actors seemingly joining in as the needs arise, to a more formal
introduction of actors and the characters they will play, as well as the props
they will use in The Rainbow Box. In Balloon Faces Way took an entirely

 

different approach, incorporating elements of ritual to draw the characters,

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rather than the actors, in for an introduction. All three plays show an
increase in participation throughout each play. With The Rainbow Box and
Balloon Faces, Way eliminated any type of antagonist in favor of a need for
everyone to work together to accomplish a goal. He also began experimenting
with a link to other art forms, most notably with the link to music education

in Balloon Faces.

 

The three plays for Third and Fourth Grades demonstrate an interest in
type and purpose of the participation. Way '5 experiments with small group
participation in The Valley of the Echoes met with limited success, causing
him to rethink the viability of exposing this age group in a performance
situation. In The Opposites Machine, he abandoned the small group
participation, but included work on sensory awareness and early socialization.
Finally, in Magical Faces, Way included the link to other art forms with the
use of instruments and masks and an early look at dance drama.

The plays for Fifth and Sixth Grades show the greatest degree of

experimentation. The Clown takes on the feel of a documentary film, with

 

the audience serving as film makers and actors in the project. The Key,
Way's most experimental piece for this age group, involves the entire
audience as cast members throughout the course of the play. With
Adventure Faces, Way, once again, sought to link art forms through the use
of a highly theatrical setting, the incorporation of mask making, stylized
dance and movement, and vocal music. All three plays include more serious
thematic material, and allow for greater individualism within a whole group
participation format.

Way feels that the older children, particularly those who are exposed to
theatre and creative dramatics from an early age, are beginning to move

toward a desire to perform, and he attempted to incorporate that need into his

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plays for the Fifth and Sixth Grades. His plays for Secondary School students
continue that idea, finding means for the students to explore the arts, and

through the arts, issues of importance to them.

CHAPTER VI
PARTICIPATION PLAYS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

In approaching the use of participatory drama with students between the
ages of twelve and eighteen, Way is quick to point out that many of the
devices that work so well with the elementary students are no longer
applicable. In his text on audience participation, Way states that the teenager
reacts to plays, as do all age groups, on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual
plane. Unlike the younger children, however, the teenager is fully aware of
the theatre environment and has, by this stage, learned certain "rules,"
specifically that one does not interfere with the stage activity through vocal or
physical participation (55). In addition to this learned social behavior, there
is a natural growth in self-consciousness that will inhibit desire to participate
which is reinforced by peer group pressure. If the age range is great, the
younger students tend to feel intimidated by the older students, while the
older students will not wish to appear foolish before the younger groups. All
of this can make participatory plays with secondary students problematic, but
not impossible if their needs a possible reactions are kept in mind.

Way suggests that while the material presented may be the same, it is
beneficial to divide the secondary students into narrower age divisions,
something that in this country is generally achieved by the split between
Junior and Senior High School. This significantly diminishes the
embarrassment factor that might otherwise be present. He also has found

that while he considers two hundred students as a maximum audience size, if

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128

participation is to be truly effective and beneficial, no more than one hundred

and twenty students should be in attendance at any given performance. He

realizes that this is not always "cost effective" for theatre, but cites his own

experiences with a theatre company in Regina, Saskatchewan. After a

relatively successful run of plays, the management, fearing competition from

a rival company, increased the audience size to three hundred. While their

profits increased, the overall quality of the productions suffered (Interview).

In writing plays for this age group, Way, working in conjunction with the

English Departments in the schools to which the Theatre Centre toured,

developed the following criteria, aimed at meeting the needs of the students:

1.

To take an experience of live theatre to young people in
theatreless areas.

To present theatre in the open stage so that no place
was deprived of a performance on the grounds that it
did not have conventional theatre facilities, including
blackout and lighting.

To adapt and present in the open stage "boo"ks that
were well known to teachers and possibly known to
the young people. The choice, however, was not to
be confined to "classics" or to any examination text.

To write new plays for audiences of young people,
possibly based on the lives of famous people, possibly
adapting material already written by others, either in
play or novel form, but without consideration of
either examination texts or precise studies in school
history or literature departments. To present these
plays in some form of open stage.

To experiment with and to develop forms of audience
participation through rehearsed crowd scenes.

To find open stage approaches to the production of
some Shakespeare scenes, including crowd scenes with
rehearsed participation which should help young
people (and possibly teachers) to experience

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Shakespeare as a vital and exciting dramatist rather
than a literary figure.

7. To incorporate in open stage productions with
rehearsed audience participation the experience of the
actors' craft (through both demonstration and personal
involvement), hoping to help teachers with their own
growing development of drama as education and also
expand young peoples' view of the actor and theatre
in society.

8. To find, within open stage theatre, approaches that
incorporate media, including film and other visuals in
conjunction with sound, tape, etc., all linked to both
Shakespeare and original texts (Audience
Participation 135-136).

It is perhaps important to note that Way emphasizes the need not to be

confined to only material currently being studied and over which the

students may be tested. His reasoning behind this is twofold: First is the

observation that many students only exposure to the arts has been as a means

for teaching or illustrating other subject matter. While this can be a benefit,

Way feels that often schools will bring in inferior quality productions, and so

the students approach such enterprises somewhat cynically, expecting to be

bored (Interview). Secondly, Way feels that it is much more important to

present the students with a viable theatre experience rather than an "audio-

visual" teaching aid. In Audience Participation, Way states,

I would not attempt (participatory theatre) merely as an
"illustration" of history or geography teaching...I will not
do Shakespeare programs simply to help the English
department to thrust past the edges of boredom of
academic study of a great playwright in order to help
examination successes. If Columbus proves successful for
history study and Shakespeare programs add glory to
examination successes, then they are fortuitous bonuses. I
cannot accept the potential of a fortuitous bonus as a
raison d'etre of a theatre experience and intuitively young
people know precisely what is the basic intention, and
react accordingly (61).

130

Bearing all this in mind, Way sees participation with secondary students
taking place in two main forms. First is having the students involved in what
he terms "the creative adventure of making theatre." He sees this occurring
most easily either through participation in a rehearsed crowd scene or the
observation of said scene. Secondly, Way found it interesting in the early
stages of touring to this age group, prior to including participation, how many
questions the company would receive about what being an actor entailed. For
that reason, he feels that sharing the different aspects of training and
creativity that are part of an actor's art can be as valuable as the play itself
(139). One or both of these forms of participation can be found in the five
plays Way published for the secondary grades.

Grinlirngibbons and the Plague of London is the earliest of the plays for
secondary students. It was first produced in 1955 and is based on the Austin
Claire story, "The Carved Cartoon." The play depicts the early struggles of
the famous young carver, a protege of Christopher Wren, and is set against
the background of seventeenth century London at the time of the Great
Plague and the Great Fire (Grinling Gibbons i). The original tour of this play
utilized a twelve member company who managed forty-two roles. The
staging was in an avenue with bleacher seating on either side of the acting
area. When possible, portable spotlights were incorporated to create various
effects (Wood 113; Way Three Plays 116).

The play is cinematic in its treatment of the subject. The play opens in 1941
in London during an air raid. Robert, a young man with an interest in
carving, and his mother have just gone down to the cellar to wait out the
raid. She carries with her a small, carved box that she tells her son has been
in the family for generations. It was originally carved by Grinling Gibbons,

and as she starts to tell her son the history of the box, the scene segues to

131

London of 1665 and the time of the Black Death. Act I is primarily concerned
with Gibbons' efforts to earn a living through his carving, his befriending of a
poor Italian boy, Silvio, who later nurses Gibbons through his bout with the
plague, his friendship with Leah Benoni, whose father tries to cheat Gibbons,
and the hatred of Jack Foster, a sailor and inferior carver, who steals Gibbons'
work and passes it off as his own.

Act 11 opens back in 1941, with Robert's mother relating how Gibbons
survived the plague, only to have his friend Silvio stricken with it. Robert's
mother explains how Gibbons searched for Silvio and how he learned of his
death, giving a vivid illustration of the horrors of the time, in her description

of the plague pit at Aldgate Churchyard:

The smell was terrible. His head seemed full and heavy
and all the strength seemed to have left him. But up and
up he climbed until, suddenly, he reached the top. Never
has there been a more terrible sight for any eyes to see. He
was looking down into a deep and wide hole, like the
mouth of some nightmarish volcano. Spread over the
whole area, grotesque and mutilated, twisted and
distorted, were the plague-stricken carcasses of hundreds
of men, women and children. There had been no time for
proper burial. They had been thrown in, naked or
clothed, just as they had died. Bodies lay piled over and
across one another. Lime had been thrown over them,
and a thin layer of earth, but it made the sight only worse
as here and there an arm or a leg had pushed through and
looked as if they were separate from any of the bodies.
Grinling, sick with horror, stood looking down into this
ghastly mangle of flesh and bone - and there, face
downward, all but covered by the earth and lime, he saw
the swarthy head of an Italian boy - the head of his friend
Silvio (32-33).

Robert's mother continues the story, telling how Gibbons consoled himself
by returning to his carving, particularly a Tintoretto cartoon that Silvio had
liked, and how Foster's jealousy of Gibbons' skill grew until he plotted to stop

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Gibbons from being able to work at all. At this point, the play shifts back to
the seventeenth century, with Gibbons studying the carving in St. Paul's
cathedral where he meets Sir Christopher Wren. The rest of the act moves
rapidly through Gibbons' arrest after Foster falsely accuses him of treason, his
escape from prison during the Great Fire of London, his daring rescue of Leah
from her burning shop and the witness of this rescue by the King, his
reuniting with Silvio, who had not died, and a final confrontation with
Foster when both meet in court, resulting in a duel, Foster's exposure as a
thief and the clearing of Gibbons' name, as well as his appointment as
"Carver to the King." The final tableau shows Gibbons kneeling before the
King, and as the music fades out, the air-raid siren sounds the all-clear.

The participation in this piece, as would be the case with the subsequent
plays for secondary students, takes place in the second act during the fire scene
and involves only a small group of students. Way suggests two possible
methods for selecting students for participation in the rehearsed crowd
scenes. The first method is for audiences made up of students from a single
school or from two smaller schools where the students are acquainted with
one another. In these cases, the schools can be allowed the opportunity to
select the participants in advance. When this was done as part of the Theatre
Centre's tours, Way urged the schools to select on the basis of genuine
interest from the students rather than school pride. According to Way,

Much of the object of the whole presentation is destroyed
if some young people have to take part against their will
and interest simply because heads of Drama or English
departments feel they will be a credit to the school
(Agdience Participation 59).

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If preselection is used, the company should always be sensitive to the
response of those involved, allowing any to drop out if they change their
minds about participating.

The other method of choosing participants is to simply ask for volunteers.
This can be done by either asking for a set number of people to participate in a
crowd scene and then quickly assign them to specific tasks, or give a brief
explanation of some of the types of characters that will be needed, choosing
volunteers for specific parts (59; Interview).

After students had been selected, they would be read or shown the
following passage, then split into groups to reenact some or all of the
situations described. This description of what the crowd scene entails is given
in Act II by a new inmate prior to Gibbons and his cellmates breaking out of

Newgate prison to escape the fire:

I tell you, man, it's terrible. Everywhere you turn there's
fire. I was at the water's edge on the Thames. From there
it looked a fantastic sight, a broad belt of fire like a flaming
rainbow spanning the length of the city, growing longer
and broader every moment. Churches were burning from
their spire downwards, glowing pyramids of flame
mounting up to heaven. Houses were blazing in long
lines of light - tongues of fire darting from one to the
other, eating up whole streets in the twinkling of an eye.

And all the time, a strong wind fanned and blew the
flames onwards, onwards, until a huge sheet of flame was
moving down towards the river. God, it was terrible.
And every street filled with terrified people, pushing and
jostling each other, with all they could rescue from their
homes piled high on any cart they could lay their hands
on. Women with babies in their arms and great loads
strapped to their backs, and little children sobbing and
crying with fright, hobbling along at their sides,
bewildered and petrified as they clung to their dogs and
cats and precious toys. And in every street there are more
people hurling their belongings out of the windows to
their families in the street below. I saw one bedridded (sic)
old woman leaving the house, trying desperately to keep

134

up with her sons - she couldn't, and fell down on the
ground to be trampled on unnoticed by hundreds of
others. And there were young women with their new
babies, and sick people, pushed and shoved and crushed
in the seething mob. And then, suddenly, there was a
deafening explosion and the powder magazine went up.
People panicked and were crushed to death, as showers of
burning timber and sparks came down on them and their
belongings and fired the houses around them. It was
ghastly. Then sparks from the explosion set light to the
oil and spirits in the warehouses by the riverside, trapping
thousands of people who had sought refuge in boats of
every kind to get away from the terrible heat of those
endless flames (42).

It is also feasible, depending upon the participants chosen, that original
ideas might be introduced. The scene would then be rehearsed during the
intermission, which lasts approximately twenty minutes, and is done in full
view of the audience. Rehearsing in front of the audience allows all of the
students a "behind the scenes" look at theatre while allowing the actors and
participants to deal with any possible kidding from audience members. Way
states that this is a natural occurrence which is often meant good-naturedly.
If the actors remain focussed on the task at hand, this will soon subside,
particularly coupled with the seriousness of the material explored
(Interview).

In Audience Participation, Way gives some additional suggestions for
handling this form of small group participation:

When talking to the family groups about the

organization of the scene, the actors should give a clear
picture of what will happen, without too much fussy
detail, which the young people may fear they might forget.
They need mainly to know the "geography" of the acting
area and which block each family will be using. They also
need to know about beginnings and endings that concern
them. Then, during the moments of stimulating ideas,
each actor needs to remain with a group until he/ she feels
that ideas are flowing with confidence. At this point it is

135

possible to withdraw. Even then the actor must not go too
far away in case his advice is sought, and he must also
keep the group aware of how much time is left for
preparation. While busy with these preparations, most
groups will momentarily forget that soon they will be
surrounded by an audience of their peers. Suddenly, just
before the run of the whole crowd scene, the realization
will hit. Many will be "stricken by stage fright." The
actors should be ready for this and neither ignore it nor
attempt to dismiss it lightly. Indeed it is often best to
identify with the feeling and have a moment of trying to
help (159).

While the amount of participation in Grinl’nrg Gibbons is relatively small,
it does lay the groundwork for the plays that follow. The second published
play for secondary students, Angel of the Prisons, incorporates the same
procedures that first appeared in Grinling Gibbons.

A_ngel of the Prisons, which was first produced in 1959, was the first of
Way's plays for secondary students to move beyond the adaptation of an
existing work. It also includes more of the audience in the participation
sequence, and introduces the concept of film techniques to the students. The
play tells the story of Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker woman who was responsible for
much of the prison reform in England during the nineteenth century. The
play opens with an argument between Harry Caldwell, a film director and his
producer, John Snyder over the potential of a script submitted by Joy Denver,
a young script writer who has been researching the life of Elizabeth Fry. In an
interesting twist, Way acknowledges, through the character of Snyder, that
the material has the potential to be boring. Snyder continuously cracks jokes
about how the religious aspects of the story are "box office poison" and fails to
see how they can make a successful movie without sex and violence. Denver
insists that they must look beyond the stereotypical images of the Quakers
and examine the individual. In an attempt to persuade Caldwell and Snyder,

Denver has hired actors to portray the characters in her script as a means of

136

illustration. Keeping the atmosphere that of a film environment, Act I shows
scenes from Elizabeth Fry's life leading up to her interest in prison reform.
The final scene reenacted is that of a young man who has heard of Mrs. Fry's
acts of charity through mutual friends. He appeals to Mrs. Fry to intercede on
behalf of the female inmates at Newgate Prison. In another of Way's
descriptive passages, the characters that the participants will play in Act II are
presented:

When I first went in, the foulness of the air was such that
I didn't think I could bear it without being ill. Then,
suddenly, I was confronted by a crowd, a horde of the
women. Many of them were drunk, some in the
background even fighting, bleeding from wounds inflicted
by their fingernails. And on the faces of those in front of
me were looks of such baseness and depravity that my
very soul was dismayed. Their clothing was piecemeal
and filthy; they have no other occupation than that of
drinking and gambling, then swearing and fighting
amongst themselves. I will not speak of what I saw of
woe and misery in the sickroom, but there, and in the

women's quarter, the sight that distressed me most was
that of the children (27-28).

Act I ends with Harry Caldwell calling for a fifteen minute break while
volunteers from the audience are selected to act as "extras" in a crowd scene
that takes place inside Newgate Prison. The scene is then rehearsed during
the break.

The focus in Act H shifts from a film set to a straight, dramatic
presentation. It opens with Elizabeth visiting women in Newgate Prison,
bringing clothes for the children who accompany their mothers to prison.
Elizabeth wins over the prisoners, and puts forth the idea of starting a school
for the children, to offer them a chance at a better life. Other scenes show her
confrontations with officials over the school, and her attempts to gain

clemency for Harriet Skelton, a woman convicted of forging banknotes and

137

scheduled for execution. Despite her efforts, Harriet is hanged, but reforms in
the laws concerning capital punishment are instituted. The play ends with
the decision by Caldwell and Snyder to make the film, with Snyder claiming
to have been in favor of it all along.

While the method of selection of volunteers, the rehearsal and the actual
performance of the volunteers is similar to that in Grinling Gibbons, the need
for participation is more clearly stated in the script of Anglof the Prisons.

 

Because this play is overtly cinematic to the point of having a film director as
one of the main characters, several opportunities for participation occur
naturally. Harry Caldwell spends a great deal of time in Act I using a camera
view-finder to observe and set-up scenes, so it is natural to explain to the
audience what he has been doing and invite them to do the same, using
hands and fingers to form the lens and viewfinder of a camera, similar to the
activity that was introduced in the upper elementary trilogy play, The Clown.
The recruiting of "extras" is also a natural development, since the
atmosphere throughout Act I has been that of an improvised rehearsal on a
film set.

There are two sections in Act II that lend themselves to crowd scenes. The
first is Mrs. Fry's initial visit to the prison where she finds herself surrounded
by inmates, and the second is a journey of manacled prisoners from Newgate
Prison to the dock-side for deportation to Australia. Having already heard the
description given of the conditions inside the prison, the participants then
talk to the actors about the types of prisoners they each might be. They are
also invited to disarray their clothing and dirty their faces with sticks of make-
up. Way emphasizes that this is not mandatory, but many of the students did
choose to do this (Interview). They then rehearse their scenes under the

guidance of Harry Caldwell, the film's director. The audience, who will

138

witness all or part of the rehearsal process, are then invited to "film" the
journey to the dock, thereby giving the entire audience a chance to participate.
As in The Clown, Way states that this gives the audience something positive
to do, so that they no longer are "cold, passive, inactive, possibly critical
viewers" (Audience Participation 161), and at the same time, decreases the
anxiety of the participants about being watched. Way also suggest the use of
music, especially for the journey scene, to help keep the action flowing and to
aid in the release of inhibitions (Creative Dramatics Workshop notes;
Interview).

In Audience Participation, Way states that one of his objectives with this
particular piece was to bridge the gap between elementary and secondary
participation. Way states that in many societies, the break between the two
forms of education is very abrupt, and this can be disorienting for the
students. He points out that children move from being the senior members
of their elementary schools, with all the "accompanying responsibilities, and
certainly with the dignity that hierarchy bestows on seniority" (161) to being
the lowest level at their Junior High School. In addition to this, there is a
change in the approach to education, moving from the relative comfort of a
single environment, to a constantly changing one. Way feels that one way for
drama teachers in the secondary schools to help ease this adjustment is to
include work that is similar to what the child experienced in his or her last
year of elementary school. Since many of Way's plays for the upper
elementary students include a journey or procession motif, the inclusion of
the journey of the prisoners helps to bridge this gap (161-163).

It should also be noted that while Way's work for the upper elementary
students did include serious subject matter, there is an increasing frankness

in the presentation of the material for the secondary students, and in these

139

first two plays, the subject matter has moved from fiction to factual material.
In fact, although this was never Way's intention, the depiction of the prison
system and of Harriet Skelton's execution in Angel of the Prisons often
provoked pointed discussions about current systems and the death penalty.
Way mentioned that this became a particularly heated debate when, several
years ago, the play was presented in Capetown, South Africa. He was in one
of the few areas that allowed racially mixed audiences to attend performances,
and the black students in the audiences decided that the play was against the
death penalty, as were they, leading to several lively discussions following the
performance (Interview). While never writing a political agenda piece,
Way's subsequent work for this age group continues to address issues and
concerns of the teenage audience member.

Way's next piece for the secondary student, while a loose adaptation of an
existing work, is highly experimental and primarily concerned with the
feeling of isolation many teens experience. The Struggle was first produced in
1963 and is based on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prgpess. The play includes the
use of dance drama and allegorical characters in telling the story of Adam, a
young man who is dissatisfied with school, his job, and what he views as his
"meaningless life." Act I opens with Adam and five of his friends dancing. As
the dance progresses, the characters become more and more isolated from one
another, and the dance moves from showing a certain joy in group
involvement to what Way describes as a type of "orgyistic wallowing" (1).
Adam breaks out of the dance, causing an altercation with three of his friends.
The group breaks up, and after a heart to heart talk with the friends that
defended him, Adam decides his problem is that he doesn't know what he
wants out of life. He gives his friends a note to give his parents that simply

says there is something he must do and not to worry. The atmosphere of the

140

play changes as Adam sets out on a journey to seek some purpose for his
existence. First, he is confronted by Knowledge, who finds Adam

guilty of ignorance and condemns him to the death of being nothing. He
then faces Authority, who forces him to work at menial tasks without
explanation. Adam makes an impassioned plea for understanding, voicing
his frustration with his life and expressing Way's personal philosophy
concerning what he views to be the sometimes narrow range of public

education:

Does that report tell you of the days and nights of wonder
I spent as a small boy, gazing at the world about me,
astonished by all I saw, eager to know what everything
was, how everything worked? Does it tell you of the time
I gazed at the sky and wondered what was there, seeing
the clouds throwing fitful shadows across the haze of
factory and field? Does it tell you of the times I have stood
at the river's edge, seeing in my mind the great seas
beyond, the peoples of different races and different
tongues, and how I wondered who they were and how
they came to be? Does it tell you of the thousand times I
have stared at my hands, my own hands, and wondered
whose hands are these and what are they for? Does it tell
you of the pains of childhood, does it tell you of the joys,
does it tell you of the wonders? Does it tell you of the
difficulty of loving and the ease of hate, of the terrible
loneliness in the night, of the birth of right and wrong, of
the hopes and fears and struggles as to who one is and
what one is and what life is all about and how one is
going to live tomorrow with the taste of today not yet died
on the lips? Does it tell you of how I have searched for
me, the real me, the me that was born into this world
without any choice and lives there by the choice of others?
No, no, no, no, it tells you none of these things. It tells
you only of the progress of another's brain seen through
the development of mine. And it tells you I failed. All
right. I failed, I failed, I failed. And I shall fail again - a
thousand times I shall fail again. And with each failure I
shall cry aloud from my heart "God made me - let me
alone that I might try to understand why." Now, leave
me alone. Please leave me alone (21).

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Authority answers him by saying how each of us must live with the memory
of wasted opportunity, and he leaves Adam alone to contemplate his words.

When Adam is about to give up, he is comforted by Hope, who tells him
that now he is ready to start his journey. She encourages him not to turn
back, and not to try to change the world by flailing at it, but to seek inner
truth. Adam sets out on his journey and along the way, he meets Sloth and
Greed, who attempt to seduce him to easy gains through theft. When he
refuses to join them, they attempt to kill him, but are scared off by Plausible,
who attempts to get Adam to turn back for food and rest. Adam is sorely
tempted and begins to despair, but once again, Hope comes to him, and
reminds him to count each small gain. Hope warns him that the path ahead
is treacherous. Act I ends with Adam facing the prospect of passing through
the city of Vanity.

Act 11 opens with a look at Vanity Fair. Way describes the city as being
filled with shops and stalls where trivial merchandise is sold.

There is nothing obviously wrong with any of the
merchandise, so only long after things are bought are their
faults found, and then it is always too late. The whole is
presided over by one Miss Meek, the best salesman of all.
Another part of it is the Palace of Good-Fortune. Here are
gambling tables of every kind, from Bingo to Roulette,
various card tables and spaces for the throwing of dice;
shooting galleries, coconut shies etc. and perhaps even a
few sideshows known as the House of Freaks. The whole
of this area is presided over by Lady Luck (36).

The basic scenario for this act has Adam attempting to pass through the city
without stopping, but he is thwarted in his attempt and temptation is thrust
at him from all sides. Lady Luck announces that he has won a rigged Bingo
game and his prize is a twenty-four hour pass. She shows him the riches of

the city, trying to tempt him into staying. When he refuses and finally lashes

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out at Lady Luck, condemning the city, the crowd turns ugly and he is brought
before a kangaroo court, presided over by Judge Petty and to be prosecuted by
Mr. Sharp. The charges are rather vague, fluctuating between being a stranger
and spying on the city. When all seems lost, a Mr. Faithful steps forward to act
as Adam's defense, even though, under city law, if Adam is found guilty, they
will both be executed. Eventually, Miss Meek defends his innocence, saying
that he was only trying to pass through, but was prevented from doing so.
Adam finally speaks for himself and comes to a realization that what he was
seeking was not the easy, empty life of the city, but "the peace of perpetual
struggle" (59). In his plea to the court, Adam expresses Way's philosophy

towards life and the development of the individual:

I see now that the struggle can be made without running
away. Could I return to my friends and home and work, I
would see life and people in a different way. I would see
that the kicks don't come from avoiding the struggle,
from making life an artificial and empty shell. That is the
root of boredom. That is the rut, the groove, the hell that
is so easy to make for oneself. And I would see the
uniqueness of every person. No two faces are alike - no
two pairs of hands exactly the same. And so it is for the
human heart, the human brain - each is different, each
unique, each important. I would still get up in the
morning and go to work - I would still go with the group.
But the endless round would be different, for I would find
ways of using the fullness of myself, the part of me that is
creative, the part that has always tried to break through
but has never been acknowledged. And I would know
that it was the same for all other people - every person in
the world has a place in the world and a purpose for being
in the world. And each needs the opportunity to find that
place and to find that purpose (60).

His plea wins the support of lady Luck, who together with Miss Meek, leads
the crowd in chanting to set Adam free. Since Mr. Sharp's case was based on

the crowd's need for vengeance, Judge Petty and Mr. Sharp agree to free the

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prisoner. Adam finds himself alone on stage, and he calls once again for his
friends. They come and join him and the play ends as it began, with a dance,
only this time, the group remains intact.

As in the previous two works, approximately twenty to thirty participants
are chosen during the intermission to take part in the Vanity Fair sequence.
Small groups of participants set up their own shops or stalls that will be used
to tempt Adam as he journeys through the city. As before, the actors briefly
explain what is to occur, and then divide into groups, each to decide for
themselves what it is they are trying to sell. The actress portraying Lady Luck
presides over the rehearsal so that she will know something about each stall
as she shows Adam about the city. In order to avoid mass chaos during the
scene, the groups are given a cue to freeze once the scene has begun, and then
unfreeze as Lady Luck comes to each group in turn. A second section of
participation occurs during the trial scene, both when the crowd condemns
Adam and then later when they call for him to be set free. This participation
need not be limited to those chosen for the Vanity Fair sequence but can
include the entire audience, under the guidance of Miss Meek and Lady Luck
(The Struggle 36, 45, 60; Audience Partigpation 159-161).

This play is one of the earliest of Way's works to incorporate dance as a
means of expression. He had long been interested in finding ways to
incorporate other art forms in his work, and was undoubtedly most successful
at this in his trilogy plays. However, he did find the dance a useful means of
"breaking the ice" with his teenaged audiences. Way attributes this in part to
the success of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. Up until this time, there
was some resistance, particularly by the male students, to the concept of
dance, but West Side Story made the art form more accessible and acceptable
to this particular audience. Indeed, Adam and his friends are depicted as

144

inner city youths with all the attending problems. Way was careful in his
plays to use music that was currently "top of the charts," helping to establish
another link with the audience, who were often surprised to hear "that sort of
music" being played during school hours at a sanctioned event (Interview).
While his next play for this age group does not incorporate dance, his final
work is much more experimental in its use of the art form.

Following this rather experimental work, Way turned to Shakespeare. He
had, since his earliest days under Tyrone Guthrie and the Old Vic, been
interested in finding ways of making Shakespeare exciting for his audiences.

In 1964, this interest led to the development of Speak the Speech I Pray You. .,

 

an introduction not only to Shakespeare's works, but to the man and the time
as well. The premise for the play is that a traveler from the present appears at
the Globe during a rehearsal for Eagle; She persuades the company of
actors, that includes William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, John Heminge,
Will Kempe and a young apprentice named Alexander, to explain to the
audience how things were done during their time. In the process, the
audience learns a great deal about the audiences in Elizabethan England, how
the theatres were run, how actors trained, how plays were written and
presented, and some insight as to the politics of the time.

The play opens with the actors involved in a series of warm-ups.
Shakespeare and Burbage are fencing, Heminge has been doing some physical
warm-ups and checking a list, Kempe is involved in vocal warm-ups and
Alexander is practicing any number of stunts, including falls from different
heights. In the midst of all this, the female observer moves about, unheeded
by the others, until she finds herself caught in the middle of the fencing,
causing the duel to cease and the action of the play to begin, including the

presentation of several scenes from Hamlet.

145

Unlike the previous plays which do not include any participation until the
second act, this play finds means to involve the audience from the beginning.
After hearing what the audiences were like during Shakespeare's time, the
audience members are asked to take on the characteristics of an Elizabethan
audience member, each deciding what position he or she occupies in society.
A group of volunteers become the money gatherers and vendors who
circulate among the audience members. From this point, with a bit more
explanation concerning costumes and the hiring of extras, the company
proceeds to present various scenes from _I;I§_m_l_e_§ to the audience. The first is
Act III; scene i, beginning with Polonius' line "Ophelia, walk you here..." and
continuing through the end of the scene. Since this involves relatively few
characters, it serves as an introduction to the language of the play, the concept
of the soliloquy, and, since Alexander plays Ophelia, the use of male
apprentices to play female roles. Having shown the entire audience one
scene, the company then recruits approximately ten volunteers to act as an
offstage crowd in Act IV; scene v, which includes Ophelia's mad scene. Since
there is a limited number of company members, the Observer takes the part
of Gertrude, although it is pointed out that normally, she wouldn't be
allowed onstage. The volunteers are part of the crowd outside the gate who
support laertes. Their participation is primarily vocal, but also includes
gathering at the door behind Laertes upon his entrance, and serves as a form
of warm—up for the more involved participation in Act II of Smak the
Speech... The company continues playing M from the end of the Mad
Scene to just before the Gravedigger Scene before breaking again for an
explanation of the role of comedy in Shakespeare's plays. They then end Act
II with Act V; scene i from Hamlet the Gravedigger Scene, ending just before

 

the funeral procession.

146

Act 11 opens with Burbage preparing to rehearse the final scene, which was
previewed to a limited extent in the opening with the fencing between
Burbage and Shakespeare. First, however, the Observer asks him to explain
what the theatres were like. This leads to the final full audience participation.
Volunteers are chosen to act as courtiers and soldiers for the final scene of

Hamlet the gatherers and sellers are given a chance to try their characters

 

once again, and the audience members are given instructions about how the
audiences responded, with the Observer comparing it to attending the
Superbowl or a rock concert. They are encouraged to respond in a similar
manner during the running of the duel scene. While the Observer works
with the audience members, Burbage conducts a rehearsal with the
volunteers, giving each specific tasks to perform. They then rehearse the
following bits of business:
1. an opening procession into the space to watch
the duel
2. the beginning of the duel, reminding those on
stage as well as the audience about the types
of responses
3. rehearsing Gertrude's fall, with practice
catching her
4. rehearsing the final exit, carrying the bodies
out.
In Audience Participation, Way discusses possible ways to rehearse this final
exit:

a. With the corpses "spread about on the floor," the
young people first need to discover with every possible
kind of help, advice and cooperation from the actors
and from the director keeping an eye on all four

147

groups, just how they can manage to lift the body to
shoulder height. Expect an enormous amount of
laughter and fun at this stage. This is healthy and
relaxing. It also help the actor and participants to make
a bond and to overcome any shyness or diffidence
about the close physical proximity. The "watching"
audience also has a chance to chat together and to come
to terms with and settle peer reactions with
participants.

b. Repeat the same procedure, but with the four corpses
starting from exactly the positions they are in when
they die. This could mean a different experience for the
young people, depending on the production....The
""fun side will naturally die away a little by now and
the growing seriousness can be helped by the attitude of
each corpse to his or her group, and by that of the
director to the rest of the audience.

c. This second attempt should also include now trying
out the very solemn, stately, slow funeral march step,
with bodies held steadily at shoulder height being
carried feet first. It is often at this time that the
discovery is made of the need for one or two more
people per corpse, and new volunteers can soon be
absorbed into the teams because they will have seen
what is happening and there will be a very precise
function for them at this stage.

(1. Now the corpses again return to their final group so
that the participants can run the whole funeral exit,
with music added to help the atmosphere, but without
taking the whole scene through to its final climax. The
fullness of the total theatre experience is thus left open

(147-148).

Following the rehearsal, the scene is then run in its entirety, and the play
ends with the final processional.

Way emphasizes that it is very important to help the participants decide
upon a particular identity, so that they will have a connection with what is
going on in the scene, rather than being merely set decoration. This holds

true for the audience members as well. In addition, all of these activities

148

must be accomplished within the time constraints of a touring schedule.
Rather than being a hindrance, Way feels that the limited time frame often
serves to liberate the participants, giving them a specific task to accomplish in
a short amount of time (Interview). In this case, the participation is also
aided by the gradual growth in development of the level of participation.

Speak the Speech, I Pray You... incorporates a framework structure for
performing scenes from a single source. In his next published play for
secondary students, Way also uses a framework to tie together scenes from
different sources on a single theme. Discovery and Survival, which was first
produced in 197 5, is actually an adaptation of two earlier works: "The
Discoverers", first produced in 1966 and "The Survivors", first produced in
1967. Discovery and Snrvival includes the strongest scenes from each work,
showing scenes of individual triumph over great hardship.

Act I takes its material from '"Ihe Survivors". The play opens with loud
music that merges with the sounds of an air raid siren and bombing. The six
member cast runs into the space, searching for safety. As the sound changes to
the whistling descent of a large bomb, the actors come together in the center
and sink into fetal positions. This is followed by a long, sustained explosion,
during which the actors, in slow motion move into a twisted, grotesque
statue. After a moment of silence, the following poem, written by Ronald
Duncan specifically for "The Survivors" is heard:

Whose boots are these

Piled high beside this oven door?

Whose teeth are these which grin

Without a lip to frame them?

And all these heads

Which dignify this straw,

And severed hands which lie, like crabs

Upon this scrubbed tiled floor, whose justice
put them there?

149

Who framed that law?

And what’s in these sealed metal canisters

Kept deep within the earth? How many,
Many unborn eyes do they intend to blind?

And why this store of cardboard coffins? Is
there no end,

No end?

It seems there are two miracles: one, Man;
The other: that he should survive his
humanity (1).

This is immediately followed by a four minute dance drama that depicts the
evolution of the world, including the evolution of man and ends as the
world is about to be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. At this point, one of the
cast members calls for the dance drama to stop, questioning whether this is
the only possible ending. With that, the characters begin to relate their own
stories of survival. As in previous plays for the elementary students, all of
the actors assume roles to assist in the telling of the stories. The first story is
Martha's and tells of her escape from a war-torn country. She is too ill to go
on, and her husband sacrifices himself to lead the enemy away from where he
has hidden her. Subsequent scenes include people facing severe drought, a
captured soldier tortured by the enemy, the sinking of an ocean liner by a
submarine, and finally, the plight of Joseph, a slave accused of talking to his
master's daughter. This scene suddenly shifts to a future slave auction where
Joseph sells white slaves, and then suddenly shifts back to the first scene, with
the girl coming to Joseph's defense. Act I ends with one of the cast members
asking if we can't just forget the past. They decide that any hope for the future
lies in remembering the past and how they survived it. A link is then
established to the material to be presented in Act II:

Man has always survived the old. He survives the old by
discovery of the new. New places, new ideas, new
inventions - new relationships. Life is a kind of journey
from one discovery to another. A journey of hell maybe.

150

But some survive - by sheer guts and faith and hope - till
the next thing comes along (29).

The act ends with the cast deciding it is time for a break and the recruiting of
approximately twenty volunteers to take part in a crowd scene in Act II. The
volunteers are then rehearsed during the twenty minute break.

There is one instance of whole group audience participation in Act I with
the sinking of the ocean liner. Once the scene has been introduced, the six
actors work with the audience, each taking a specific section. As in the whole

group participation in Sgpreak the Speech", each audience member is asked to

 

decide who they might be on the liner. It is feasible that audience members
might wish to work as groups or family units. Through discussion and
improvisation, the actors help the audience work out a short sequence that
ends with the audience frozen in a "still photograph" at a specific moment in
the disaster. That moment can vary depending upon each group. It is also
helpful to include music as a stimulus (Interview; Audience Participation
163). At the end of the sequence, the audience returns to their seats and the
rest of the story is told. This whole group involvement serves as a warm-up
for the participation in Act II.

Act II is based on "The Discoverers," and includes three scenes from that
piece. The opening sequence, which includes the audience participation, is
taken from _A_ngel of the Prisons and begins where Harriet Skelton begs
Elizabeth Fry for help. It includes the scenes where she confronts the
authorities about the conditions in the prisons, appeals to Lord Sidmouth to
spare Harriet, the procession of the prisoners for transport to Australia and
ends with the announcement of Harriet Skelton's death. The audience
participation is the procession of prisoners and follows the same procedures

as described in Angel ogre Prisons.

151

A transition is made to the rest of the act, which is much lighter in mood.
There is a brief discussion about how Elizabeth Fry was a survivor because of
her constant struggles for reform, and a discoverer because she found the
means to enact that reform. There is then the presentation of two scenes of
other discoverers who overcame great odds. The first shows Louis Braille
developing his system of reading and writing. Following the Elizabeth Fry
scene, this is fairly relaxed and joyous in nature. The final scene, which
includes the excitement of a chase and the apprehension of a criminal,
concerns the development of the telegraph. In the scene, there is initial
skepticism about the telegraph's worth. It is then used to apprehend a
murderer who escaped by train, marking the birth of the age of
communication. The act ends with another dance drama, first showing all six
characters making efforts to communicate without sound. As the efforts fail,
they collapse in frustration. After a moment of silence, they begin to recite
"To everything there is a season..." and move into the positions they were in
for the first dance drama of the play. At the end of the recitation, they again
perform the "evolution of the world" dance drama, but this time ending with
a suggestion of hope.

While this play does not break any new ground in the nature of the
participation, it is interesting to note the seriousness of the subject matter
presented, particularly in Act I. In his comments on an observation of a
performance of this particular play in 1975, Ronald Wood notes that several
teachers were initially concerned that the serious nature of much of the
subject matter was above the students, particularly in the Junior High age
range, and that they would have trouble understanding it. After the
performance, it was clear from the responses of the audience members that

this was not the case. Wood relates hearing a group of students discussing

152

what they had seen and explaining the theme and contents of the play in
great detail to another student who was not at the performance (300).

It is important to reiterate that the focus of Way's experiments with
participatory theatre for secondary students is to give the students an
opportunity to take part in what he terms the "creative adventure of making
theatre" (Audience Participation 139). This includes, but is not limited to,
including the audience in the total experience, including setting up the space
and warming up for performance. He suggests that the actors might even
include the audience, if the inclination is there, in some of the warm-up
activities, explaining to them the purpose behind what they do. He states that
even a few minutes of this type of sharing can be a great bond builder, and
serve as a warm-up for the audience if the play is to later involve
participation (139). The point is to remove any elitism that might exist, and
bring the theatre into the experiential realm of the audience. This is easier if
the students have been exposed to theatre from their earliest educational
experiences, but can be achieved with any group, including, on a limited

level, the family audience.

CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND
RECONIIVIENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

This study was divided into four sections, each focussing on either plays
written for specific age groups, or plays joined together as part of a trilogy
based upon a specific theme. Within each section, the individual plays were
examined in terms of their thematic material and the use of participation
techniques in presenting that material. In examining the works
chronologically, a progression can be seen in terms of complexity of theme,
participation, or both.

The plays written for the lower elementary grades contain relatively
simple plots that rely heavily upon "magic" for a successful outcome. All
incorporate a sympathetic protagonist who treats the children as equals and
embodies a certain innocence. Two of the characters, Tom in The Bell and
Peter in The Hat, are youthful while Ned Wheelwright in The Wheel and the
Toyman in The Mirrorman are grandfatherly figures. The innocence of these
four characters help establish a bond and trust with the audience, ensuring
that the audience will assist the protagonist when the need arises. The
simplicity of each of these characters underscores a recurring theme of Way's,
illustrating the value of each individual. This is perhaps best illustrated with
the character of Tom in The Bell Way's second play for this age group.

 

Way experiments with the role of the antagonist in these four plays. In the

first play, The Wheel, Way presents an antagonist who is reformed through

 

153

154

the efforts of the protagonist and the audience. With his second play, me
13211, there is no central antagonist, although two minor ones appear in one
sequence in the characters of the king and queen. However, the problem
centered around the two is quickly resolved. Instead of relying upon an
antagonist, the action is driven by the need to create the "Bell of Happiness."

The Mirrorman, Way's third play, is his only work for elementary students of

 

any age that contains a definite antagonist in the character of the Witch.
Instead of reform, it is necessary to banish her. The presence of an absolute
villain did present the need for careful staging in order to avoid frightening

the youngest members of the audience unnecessarily. In his final play in this

 

category, The Hat there is a complete lack of an antagonist. In this case, the
problem of removing the hat from one of the characters is the central
concern. Way's move away from the use of an antagonist continues in his
later plays for the younger children, placing the emphasis upon the need for
cooperation of all individuals in overcoming a crisis.

Participation for this age group is primarily whole group, with a
combination of stimulated and directed involvement, relying upon sound
and motion activities. The one exception occurs in Way's first play in this
category, The Wheel, which includes one sequence that involves volunteers.
Small group participation does not occur again for the lower elementary
students, either in these plays or in the lower elementary trilogy plays. This
reflects Way '3 concern for exposing children of this age group to scrutiny by
fellow students and teachers.

The participation is fully integrated in each of the plays, making the
audience members an important part of the outcome. In the first three plays,
Way experiments with sensory awareness, sequencing of activities to build

toward a climax and release of energy and structuring the activities in such a

155

manner that audiences are given the most physical action approximately the
time they grow the most restless. In his fourth play, The Hat, Way also begins
to experiment with combining color and sensory awareness activities. In all of
the plays, the participation by the audience and the need the central characters
have for the audience's help give the audience a sense of control over events
and satisfaction in the outcome that enhances Way's theme of individual
worth.

With the plays for the upper elementary students, there is a conscious
effort to provide more complex thematic material. The issues presented
include pacifism in Crossroads, The Ladder, and on a limited level in 13.
11131351,- an individual's responsibility to self and to others in On Trial and 13
mg, and on a limited level in The Ladder and The Lantern; the respect for
tradition and an understanding of other cultures in The Decision and Big
Jim and the preservation of the land in The Lantern. Present in all these
plays is a repetition of the theme from the lower elementary plays concerning
the worth of all human life. Unlike the lower elementary plays, these pieces
often leave matters unresolved, allowing for input from the audience and
hopefully encouraging discussion after the play.

There are no clear cut villains in these plays, although each presents
characters with opposing points of view. In each case, Way strives to create a
balance in the characters, so that sympathy will not tip too much in favor of
one character over another. Instead, reasons are given for each character's
behavior and attitudes. If any change is to come, it is generally presented as

feasible through compromise and reform. Even in Crossroads which presents

 

the most war-like figures, the attempt is to reform and understand rather
than overpower.

The plays for the upper elementary students include experimentation in

156

the style of the production, most notably in Crossroads and The Lantern, each
of which contains a dance drama and in The Decision, which is written
entirely in verse. These plays, along with the mask-making activity in T_hg
Mg illustrate Way's desire to integrate other art forms into his
productions. This idea is further explored in the trilogy plays.

The participation techniques employed in these plays involve a greater
degree of experimentation than is present in the plays for the lower
elementary students. The earliest play, Crossroads, presents relatively simple,
whole group participation, similar to that found in the plays for the lower
elementary students. In his next play, The Ladder, Way begins to experiment
with small group participation, having the actors choose volunteers to
participate in each of their "adventures." Way is careful in each instance of
small group involvement to ensure that the volunteers will not be called
upon to perform as individuals, as this could lead to self-consciousness. Way
refines the technique of small group involvement in his next play, T_he
Lanteg, by having volunteers participate in the central acting area while the
entire audience provides stimulation through sound and motion. This
further lessens any apprehension the volunteers might have concerning
performance.

Way's most experimental play in terms of participation is On Trial which

 

includes extensive small group participation with a limited number of
volunteers. The remainder of the audience watch the proceedings. Their
involvement is suggested in the open ending of the piece, which calls for the
audience to decide the guilt of innocence of the character on trial. Way was
hoping that this would stimulate discussion after the play was over
(Children's Theatre Workshop notes; Interview). Because of a concern

expressed by teachers that the entire audience could not be involved, Way

157

returned to whole group participation in his last two plays in this category,
The Decision and The Island. The Decision includes the most physical
activity for the entire audience and The Island includes experimentation with
mask making and processions. These last three plays also served as a means
of illustrating creative drama techniques to classroom teachers.

With his trilogy plays, Way enters a period of more concentrated
experimentation. With the three plays for the lower elementary grades, MI;
Grump and the Clown, The Rainbow Box, and Balloon Faces, Way tried
varying the opening. While each play is slightly different, the intent seems to
be to acquaint the students with the actors and/ or the characters prior to
entering into the story line. Indeed, the story line seems to be secondary to
providing participation, particularly in the last play, Balloon Faces. The
emphasis in each case seems to be to provide the audience with as many
opportunities to participate as possible. The greatest experimentation comes
in the last play, Balloon Faces, with the extensive use of the Orff instruments,
an idea that was introduced in The Rainbow Box.

One other item of note is that these two plays, The Rainbow Box and
Balloon Faces contain no character who acts as the antagonist. Instead, the
characters find themselves caught in situations that require the assistance of
the audience, opening the door for the participation activities.

The three plays for the middle age range of students, Valleg of the Echoes,
The Opposites Machine, and Magical Faces, provide more concrete plot lines,
and an emphasis on reforming one or more misguided characters. While
there are hints of more serious themes, such as the need to treat all
individuals with respect as presented in Valley of the Echoes, there is still a
reliance on magic and a fairy tale format that is present in the plays for the

lower elementary grades.

158

The participation techniques in these plays also combine elements of the
upper and lower elementary plays. The majority of the participation is whole
group, with some rather extensive and urgent sections present in Valley of

the Echoes which also includes a section of combined small group and whole

 

group participation. Different types of activities are present in The Opposites

Machine including some early socialization exercises. While the

 

participation in The (Apposites Machine always involves the whole group,

 

there is room for individuality within the participation, most notably in the
beginning of the play when the audience is asked to create all sorts of devices
for the Professor's machine. While the general activity is the same, each
audience member is able to determine exactly what he or she wants to make.
As in the lower elementary trilogy plays, the last play in this category presents
the highest level of participation, including the use of the Orff instruments
and a mask-making activity.

The trilogy plays for the upper elementary students demonstrate the
greatest degree of experimentation. As in the previous upper elementary
plays, the subject matter is more serious in theme and tone, examining such
topics as trust and friendship in The Clown, responsibility to the community
in The Key and the need for progress versus respect for tradition in
Adventnre Faces.

In terms of the participation, Way varied the nature and amount in each of
these plays. The Clown uses the premise of filming a documentary to engage
the audience in numerous activities, all performed at one and the same time,
throughout the course of the play. While the activities are extensive, they
always return to their role as spectators. In The Key, Way pushed the limit on
the amount of participation, involving the audience almost from the

beginning. In essence, the audience becomes part of the cast for the entire

159

production. Way's final play in this category, Magical Faces, returns to a more

 

conventional theatrical setting, but seeks to involve the audience as
participants in a ritual performance near the end of the play. This play also
incorporates the use of Orff instruments and masks. There is a move in this
type of participation toward a more formal performance

situation for the audience members. While not wholly successful with this
age group, Way does feel that there is a growmg desire among older children
to be a part of this type of performance activity, and that with the proper
amount of time and preparation, this can be a benefit (Audience
Participation 132).

The primary focus in the plays for the secondary schools is to provide
students with a "creative adventure" in the performance of a theatre piece. A
secondary intention is to give the students a look at the actor's craft through
either a demonstration of, or direct involvement in warm-up activities prior
to performance. The bulk of the material presented to the secondary school
students is either historically based or adaptations of literary works. Two of
the plays, The Struggle, which is loosely based on Pilgrim's Prgress, and
Discovery and Survival, which includes original and historically based
material, also present themes aimed at the teenaged audience member. T_h_g
Struggle addresses the need for every individual to find a place in the world
and a purpose for being. Discovery and Snrvival presents a series of vignettes
loosely tied together by an anti-war theme that ends on a note of hope for the
future. A third play, has been interpreted by some audiences to be against
capital punishment, although Way claims that this was never his intention
(Interview).

These plays are generally presented as strictly theatrical pieces in an
intimate setting. Participation does not generally occur until after the

160

intermission, allowing the students time to be drawn into the production,
volunteer for the participation sequences and then rehearse those segments
during the intermission. Rehearsals are done in full view of the remainder
of the audience, fulfilling the secondary intention of the plays by allowing the
students to witness how scenes can be staged and rehearsed.

While Way does attempt to avoid any political agenda in his plays, it
should be noted that there is a certain philosophy present, inspired
undoubtedly by his pacifism. Of the twenty-four plays discussed, eight
contain some reference to war, rebellion or the military. The strongest
statements can be found in two of the plays for upper elementary students
and one of the secondary school plays. Crossroads is the most overt, with a
clear anti-war message as the theme. The Island presents a community
during an occupation by a foreign military presence. Discovery and: Survival,
which opens and closes with the threat of a nuclear holocaust, includes three
scenes centered around a war, illustrating personal strength and selflessness.
In all three plays, there is an eventual coming to terms with the situation and
a forgiveness of one's enemies.

One other motif that dominates Way's work is the respect for the
individual and the acknowledgment of each individual's worth in society. In
the lower elementary plays, this is often suggested by the very nature of the
protagonists who appear simple and child-like, but are capable of solving
problems and restoring order. The concept is further enhanced by the very
nature of the participation, which places great value on the assistance
provided by the audience. In the upper elementary plays, the characters
presented are more knowledgeable and mature, but they still turn to the
audience for assistance, and in plays such as The Decision and On Trial, give

them the opportunity to have their own say. For the secondary students, the

161

most overt discussion of personal value takes place in The Struggle, which
follows the exploits of a contemporary of the audience's on his quest for
understanding and a place in society.

In examining participation, Way is perhaps most successful in
incorporating his techniques with the lower and middle age range of
elementary students, particularly with the use of whole group involvement.
The connection between the activities in the plays and creative dramatics
coupled with the natural enthusiasm of children of this age range allows for
more spontaneous and enthusiastic participation. It has been my
observation, and Way has confirmed this, that the upper elementary students
and secondary students are torn between a desire to participate and the fear of
appearing foolish before their peers. With the more experimental
participation, such as the dance drama in Adventure Faces, Way has
expressed the desire for an extended time period, as opposed to the usual fifty-
minute sessions, so that the students are allowed an opportunity to
experiment and feel comfortable with the activity (Interview).

It has also been Way's experience, and this is a phenomenon that I have
observed as well, that there is a tendency for more support for the
participation from the teachers for the lower elementary grades (Interview). I
feel that this is due, in part, to the nature of the participation, involving all
the students at one and the same time in a single activity. Once the teachers
observe the controls that are built into the activities, many will join in along
with their students. Presentations of plays for upper elementary students, on
the other hand, can be somewhat problematic. In directing On Trial for a tour
of elementary schools in southeastern Iowa in 1980, I very often found that
the schools, who had been informed of the nature of the production prior to
our arrival, would preselect the participants, often based on scholastic merit.

162

One other problem I encountered was the sudden appearance of a class of
kindergarteners at the performance for the upper elementary students. While
we had specified the age divisions when booking performances of the tour,
many principals would ignore this, feeling that any play would be fine for the
children, regardless of content. The material was clearly over the children's
heads, and they tended to be confused by the proceedings. When I discussed
this with Mr. Way, he confirmed that this had also been a problem for his
group early in its existence, but that over time, the schools began to see the
necessity for the age divisions and would comply (Interview).

At the suggestion of Mr. Way, I contacted Jack Welch, his agent at Baker's
Plays, to see if Welch had received any data concerning problems in
compliance to the age divisions from other directors. Mr. Welch informed
me that they had no such information on file. Future researchers might
pursue this avenue to examine the problem and present pOssible solutions.

Another possible area of future research is in audience response to these
plays. While Way personally is suspect of such research, preferring to rely
upon his own instincts and observations, such a study might aid future
playwrights who wish to incorporate participation techniques into their work.
Audience studies might also include investigations into specialized groups,
including participatory plays with pre-school students or with learning or
physically disabled audience members. Studies could also be done comparing
the response to participatory theatre in schools who receive the arts on a
regular basis as part of their curriculum, and schools that are relatively
isolated.

Another avenue of potential study is in the field of training for those
involved in producing participatory plays. This need not be confined to actor

training, but might also include training for designers and directors as well as

163

those involved in the business aspects of participatory theatre. The research
could involve a study of the needs of such a training program or an
examination of existing programs with recommendations.

Historians might examine Brian Way's workshops in Creative Dramatics
and Children's Theatre conducted in Europe, Asia, the United States and
Canada. Has his approach to teaching changed over time? What trends does
he see in participatory theatre? One might also trace the history of his
productions in the United States and Canada, examining not only the plays
he has directed, but the direction of his works by others.

Finally, research might be conducted on the incorporation of the other arts
into participation plays. Is it possible to develop art forms other than those
presented by Brian Way? Connections with art, music and dance can only
serve to benefit children, providing them with art experiences they might

otherwise never receive.

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