Exploring the text

EXPLORING THE TEXT
by David Lane and Mavis Howard

Two months ago the Network was invited by Context Theatre to contribute to the development of new work dealing with issues of asylum, exile and displacement. Context Theatre are a company in development that seek to promote the social relevance of theatre as the essence of their work, investigating new ways to mediate and contextualise theatre through all elements of its structure and holding a dramaturgical perspective at the centre of their practice.

The Play
Network dramaturgs David Lane and Katalin Trenscenyi undertook the exploration of a short play in a workshop with actors and the writer, Mavis Howard. Tora Bora Interlude was a snapshot of the world fifteen years in the future, following the disintegration of the West by global warming and anti-capitalist terrorism, and exploring the enduring loyalties, patriotism and faith that surround a highly relevant issue for a contemporary audience.

The play drew together an ageing British aid worker, George, an American female ex-fighter pilot, Cranley, and a British Muslim fifteen years in hiding, Colin Mohammed. Stranded by a cave entrance in the infamous Tora Bora mountain region, they are forced to come to terms with their pasts and their prejudices. What follows is a brief reflection by the dramaturgs and writer on the processes we applied to her work:

The Workshop
We began with some helpful loosening up exercises and some games to familiarise us with each other, and the environment within the play. Although darting through imaginary minefields, improvising a day’s routine in a pitch black cave, and limping around the rehearsal room with injuries whilst attempting to escape from soldiers appeared to be a tool for simply introducing the play in a relaxed way, they gained more relevance as we drew in research and considered the real-life experiences of those individuals the characters might be based on. These simulated experiences made sense in terms of preparing the characters as we delved deeper into their backgrounds, considering the pressures they may find themselves under before, during, and after the dramatic action.

One of our concerns about the piece was the elusiveness of the characters’ individual histories. Although this may have been something the writer could be free to develop on her own, we agreed that in a dramatic environment that so often referenced past events, set in a future close enough to reflect a contemporary world, and concerning characters who are either overcoming, facing, or escaping from their past lives, there needed to be a greater understanding of these areas reflected in the text.

We gave monologue exercises to the actors, encouraging them to write small individual scenes that could tell us about their attitudes to the past: George wrote about his childhood memories in Afghanistan, Cranley spoke at her daughter’s headstone, Colin read a diary entry the day he decided to join the Muslim fighters. Aside from revealing some new aspects of the characters’ lives, it was also a chance for us to understand what the original play had communicated to the actors about these people - and therefore what still needed to be said, left out or developed in the writing, in relation to the play’s overarching theme of facing the past.

Improvised duologues based on the characters meeting before the events of the play were also very beneficial for both the actors and the writer. By emphasising key characteristics of their roles, the actors found it easier to relate to the piece and to their parts, which made further work on developing the existing text much easier. In turn, this served to illustrate new ways in which the play might develop from its existing shape as a dramatic ‘interlude’; as our understanding of the subject matter within the piece began to grow in complexity, the interaction between the characters also gained more depth. In terms of development, the writer realised the importance of maintaining a balanced relationship between the characters, and the growth of the play as a vehicle for exploring conflicting arguments.

The emphasis in the first part of the workshop was upon improvising scenes around the text to explore character, whereas the second half looked at developing the original scenes and uncovering new possibilities that could enhance the dramatic action. This included taking arguments and conflicts to their highest point, manufacturing scenarios where the characters were forced to make decisions that involved judging what one another’s lives were worth, and removing the luxury of a common language to see how the characters dealt with Mohammed when verbal negotiation was not an option.

For each scenario the actors were given the existing text as a starting point, along with clear objectives - usually conflicting - and then asked to find a natural compromise to end the improvisation. These exercises served to clarify the intention behind the writing in particular sections of dialogue, and allowed the writer to see where scenes could be developed or constructed differently to really expose the characters’ complexities and desires in such a hostile situation.

The rehearsed reading was an opportunity to incorporate our new understanding about the characters, the scenarios and the history of the dramatic world into a performance that reflected a thorough understanding of the contemporary context of the piece. For the writer, several conclusions were drawn about the clarity of the history she had created in the fifteen years leading up to the time of the play, both globally and concerning the individual characters themselves; principally how much more (or less) was required within the text for the audience to grasp the severity of the impact of terrorism upon each of these characters’ lives.

The writer found the workshop to be an imaginative and thought-provoking approach, which drew together research, the creativity of actors and a willingness to engage with and expand contemporary issues, whilst holding the writer’s intentions behind the play at the forefront of the day’s work.

Context Theatre have currently secured funding to support further work in the realm of asylum and exile and are looking forward to presenting a new production in asylum centres, schools and colleges in the Cambridge area towards the end of 2002. 

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