In
the first instance -
Players and Participants come together to form the
first circle – the group gathers to exchange and share
stories. Stories - trivial and profound, comic and dramatic,
stories that share the stuff of what it is to be human.
Raw Theatre, like other forms of participatory theatre, recognises
that people are both stories in their own right and they also
carry many stories.
The
source of the material for the stories to be enacted comes
from the participants. A Raw Theatre event is used as a means
of training actors and is used as a means of delivering a
workshop and a theatrical performance. Stories enacted in
Raw Theatre not only rely on participant's ability to re-tell
past events, but also their ability to construct, imagine,
shape and re-shape their stories. The processes of Raw Theatre
are designed to allow both participants and players to be
the story and the story teller, as narrator, author and/or
actor.
"
If
we wish to know about a man, we ask "what is his story
- his real, inmost story?" - for each of us is a biography,
a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed,
continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us - through
our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions;
and not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically,
physiologically, we are not so
different from each other; historically, as narratives - we
are each of us unique. To be ourselves we must have ourselves
- possess, if need be re-possess, our life stories. We must
"recollect" ourselves; recollect the inner drama,
the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative,
a continuous inner narrative, to maintain
his identity, his self."
Oliver
Sacks: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat |
