Research-based Theatre

An Artistic Methodology

George Belliveau, Graham W. Lea, George Belliveau, Graham W. Lea, George Belliveau

• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783206766
• eBook ISBN: 9781783206780
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Research-based theatre aims to present research in a way that is compelling and captivating, connecting with viewers on imaginative and intellectual levels at the same time. Research-Based Theatre brings together scholars and practitioners of research-based theatre to construct a theoretical analysis of the field and offer critical reflections on how the methodology can now be applied. The book shares twelve examples of contemporary research-based theatre scripts and commentaries from an international group of artists and researchers, selected with an eye toward representing different approaches that come from a variety of disciplinary areas.
 

Section I

Education

Chapter 1

Scripting a Narrative Inheritance: Homa Bay Memories

Graham W. Lea

Introduction

As part of my teacher education program, I travelled to rural Kenya for a two-month teaching practicum. However, the trip was more than an opportunity to hone my teaching skills, it was also a personal quest, an opportunity to retrace my mother’s footsteps. In the late 1960s, my mother June¹ spent four years teaching in the Kenyan town of Homa Bay. As a child, I grew up hearing stories and viewing slides, becoming entranced with this period in her life. After her death, I continued to be fascinated by her Kenyan experience and so jumped on the opportunity to visit the country during my teacher training. Homa Bay Memories carefully examines these experiences using an amalgam of research-based theatre, narrative inquiry, and autoethnography.

To write the full-length script, I immersed myself in letters, journals, photographic slides, audio recordings, and other artefacts from my mother’s time in Kenya as well as e-mails, videos, journal entries, photographs, artefacts, and memories from my experience there. This theatrical exploration strives to help understand how narrative inheritance (Goodall, 2005) has influenced my relationship to a place to which I had never been, my relationship with my mother, and my way of being in the world. The following excerpt is taken from early in the script, where I stage both my and June’s journey to Kenya simultaneously. This fluidity in time and place emphasizes how both June and I sought ways of crossing time, place, and mortality in order to maintain and build connections while in Kenya. One of the principal methods June used to connect with her family while away was the letters she wrote to her mother Phyllis who also appears in this excerpt.

Scripted Excerpt: Homa Bay Memories

(SET: There are three principle performance areas:

1. SR is in Eastern Canada in the late 1960s. Most frequently it is a 30-year-old farmhouse in rural PEI. There is a wooden table with a stack of light blue airmail envelope paper.

2. SL begins as a small room in Labrador and dorm room in Montreal. Later it becomes a small house in the rural Kenyan community Homa Bay in the late 1960s. There is a chair and a simple writing desk with a similar pile of light blue airmail envelope paper as well as a small journal.

3. CS is a neutral area. The floor in this area is white. There are two white blocks that serve various functions.

A white cyc at the rear of the stage is used for colour and as a screen for projections.

Through the script GRAHAM² is blocked as entering and exiting the stage, not usually present in JUNE’s moments. An alternate staging may have GRAHAM on stage throughout the show, reacting to JUNE’s moments but not directly interacting until indicated.

Music may be used to underscore transitions and some suggestions are made throughout the script.

LIGHTING: The desks should be tightly lit so that they can be isolated, appearing to float in space. The CS play area is more generally lit with options to isolate some areas and to manipulate colour)

MOMENT 3A

(Lights come up SL, a small dorm room in Montreal. Everything is packed up)

JUNE:
	Dear Family,
	A start tonight on the weekly letter which will have to be mailed from France on Monday. Have just come up from calling you. (JUNE gets up and starts to finish packing) Wish I hadn’t made you sound so sad on the phone tonight, but I hope there was more than sadness there.
	Tonight is odds and ends of many kinds as we prepare to leave. This is another group of people that it will be hard to leave but there is something happy about it all. Hope I was able to show you some of that tonight.
	(Lights crossfade to SR. Sounds of an airport din)

MOMENT 3B

PHYLLIS:

Where in the world are you tonight? Are you having a nice trip? (Lights come up CS and fade almost completely on the SR area but PHYLLIS should still be slightly visible)

MOMENT 3C

JUNE:	(JUNE and others, including GRAHAM enter the CS area moving the boxes to form an airplane facing US. GRAHAM should be unnoticed. Photos of the crowd are projected on the cyc. See Figure 1. Great chaos. They are singing “Nova Scotia Farewell”)
	At Montreal airport. All 100 or more of us. We must have looked like refugees, standing around, or sitting on our suitcases as folk songs filled the air.
	(By this time the plane has been formed and they begin taking their seats. An image of the exterior of the plane is projected. Sounds of a Yukon plane warming up and taking off and crossfade to the sounds of its interior. An image of the interior of the plane may be projected. When JUNE sits, she faces DS)
	The seats in the Yukon are three on either side of the plane, certainly not designed for comfort. We were able to rest with our feet in each others’ laps. It was a long night of no sleep.
	(The cyc is slowly lit to reflect a sunrise, possibly accompanied by a picture of that sunrise)
	Sunrise over the Atlantic was beautiful. A strip of red on the horizon then more and more light as the clouds, above and beneath turned silver and gold. (JUNE turns US with the rest of the passengers)

MOMENT 3D

(CS lights change to indicate change in time)

GRAHAM:	(Sounds of a plane in flight continue, possibly fading into a Boeing 747. GRAHAM is sound asleep, head back, hands on legs)
	Doesn’t matter how uncomfortable the seats are. When you’ve been up 33 hours, 30,000 feet and a bottle of red wine’ll put you right out. The other student teachers, Wendy, Rebecca, and Emma had to crawl over me to get in or out of their seats. They said a flight attendant came to check that I was still breathing. (Plane sounds fade as GRAHAM wakes up, stands, steps DS)
	No wonder. Drive from Charlottetown to Halifax, fly Halifax to Montreal then to London for a 17 hour layover. 17 hours!
	Now, Heathrow may be more exciting than the Charlottetown airport … but for 17 hours … I don’t think so. So we got tube tickets into London and did the whirlwind tour … we saw it all, all the big stuff. (Images of each are shown on the cyc accompanied by the sound of a camera shutter) You know, Buckingham Palace, The River Thames, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, The Parliament buildings, Piccadilly Circus, The Tower of London, London Bridge. We didn’t spend much time anywhere, didn’t go in … but we got good photo ops.
VOICE OVER:	Mind the gap.
	(GRAHAM enters the tube and stands. Sounds of the tube)
GRAHAM:	Standing room only on the tube back to Heathrow. Wendy’s so tired she falls asleep standing up. Standing up! One minute she is up, next she’s crumpled on the tube floor. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep but I can’t wait to be home in my own bed.
	Month and a half of teaching, two weeks of travel. It’ll be gone before I know it and here I’m wishing it away before I even get there. (GRAHAM sits back into the plane, tube sounds fade out)
JUNE:	(JUNE stands and stretches, steps DSR)
	A day and a half at the RCAF base in Marville.^3 We really should not leave but the C.O.^4 is going to let us visit Luxembourg City. (An image of Luxembourg City is displayed in the back) With the aid of a map and our imaginations we tried to figure out some of the city. The narrow cobblestone streets, yellowish-beige stone brick or stucco buildings, the palace, a cathedral with worn tapestries.
	Before getting on the plane again I purchased, of all things, a tape recorder. You will find out why in a few months. (JUNE returns to sit. Interior plane sounds start again)
GRAHAM:	(Turns to the audience) The others are anxious about the two weeks of travel … costs, practicality … I’ve dreamt about this my whole life. I want it all. I want to see the country Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Mombasa. There may have to be some concessions. (GRAHAM takes the letter out of his pocket and looks at it) One of those concessions will not be Homa Bay. I have to get there.
JUNE:	(Turns as if looking out the window)
	North Africa is really a desert. Miles and miles of golden brown sand interrupted by bands of green. The sun setting rapidly in a melody of pinks and golds.
VOICE OVER:	(GRAHAM and others sit and adjust for landing) Ladies and gentlemen, in preparation for our final descent into Nairobi, please ensure your seatbelts are fastened, your seats are in their upright position and tray tables are in their upright, and locked position.
GRAHAM:	(GRAHAM takes out a black leather notebook and begins writing. He looks out the window) I don’t know what to think. I will be in Africa in minutes. I can’t believe it. I have dreamt about this all my life and now it’s just minutes from happening. I am on what wil...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Section I: Education
• Section II: Health
• Section III: Community
• Final Reflections
• Contributors
• References
• Back Cover