Process Drama IDEAS

Andrea Hardy

Pretext: An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow by Les Murray

Date:
Time: After lunch, 1:15 to 2:45pm
Class: Grade 10, co-educational
Aims: An understanding through drama skills of how our small actions can have a big effect.
Teaching Objectives: Through drama skills, consider the effect you can have on other people.
Learning Objectives: To strive to have a positive effect on others, see the bigger picture of your actions.
Continuity: This is the first lesson in the unit, however students are expected to be familiar with the methods of tableau and improvising scenes. From this point students could study the poem and devise a piece inspired by it, relating how your small actions can change your environment.
Progression: Students become aware of their actions and emotions and the effect these can have on those around them. Students understand the importance of being an individual and develop their own unique views and ideas. Students are empowered to affect change in their environment.
Links to Curriculum: Communicating – Being Arts Literate
Thinking – Inquiry and Reflection
Personal Futures – Building and Maintaining Identity and Relationships
Assessment: Ongoing

Organisation: Projector (Overhead or Powerpoint)

Poem to be projected (Overhead or Powerpoint). Poem can be found at http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_aor.htm Also at this website is an mp3 of Les Murray reading the poem which can be cut and used in the statements section.

Sound effects – Man Crying, find willing male colleague to help you with this. Also need suitable media player to play this on.

Video footage – News Reporter reading 2nd stanza, preferably not yourself, though you can substitute a teacher-in-role in this section is technology is unavailable. Again you will need suitable media player to play this on.
News script: The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing. There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him. We now cross live to the scene.

News reporter microphone

Police hat or baton

Pens, paper for students who forget to bring theirs.

Procedure: Text in italics indicates script to be said to class.

Time Activity
1:15 Students arrive outside the room. Take a moment for them to settle and finish any administrative duties. Enter the room with sound effect of a man crying.

1:20 In groups of three or four, discuss who is crying and why. Present three consecutive snapshots that lead-up to the man crying. 10min

1:30 Show news footage of 2nd stanza or teacher-in-role. In a circle have each student give their version of events, as if interviewed by news-reporter and recorded on camera. Use the microphone for teacher-in-role or to indicate whose turn it is. 10-15min

1:45 “Such a commotion was caused that day that the police were called to ensure everyone’s safety. All the people that had been interviewed by the news team had to stay at the scene and recreate where they were and what they were doing at the time of the commotion.”
Giant tableau. Start with the crying man in the middle, if a student chose to be the man in the news interview. If not, use an inanimate object like a chair or table to fill this role. Ask students in their own time to take up the position their character was in when the man started crying and freeze. When everyone is in place, teacher-in-role the police commissioner and interview a few students about who they are and what they were doing. Ask questions that would reveal information that hasn’t been heard yet. Tapping in or thought tracking. 15min

2:00 “The Police compiled together everyone’s statements. There were people who said… (insert student contribution) and others said…But one man’s statement Was a little peculiar.”
Reveal stanza seven on the projector, from ‘Ridiculous’ to ‘gift of weeping;’ In groups of 4 or 5, students will act out what happened to these two characters, the man who said ridiculous and vomited and the woman who joined in crying. This will be shared as two scenes in parallel. When sharing these, ask one scene to freeze and swap to the other one. 15min (including sharing)

2:15 “As we have seen, the man crying in the street had different effects on people. For some, it changed their life. To others it meant nothing. Some will say, in the years to come, a halo or force stood around him. There is no such thing. Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood, the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected judgments of peace. Some in the concourse scream who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children and such as look out of Paradise come near him and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.”
Display this part of the poem on the projector. Going back to their original character, students write a letter to someone, or an entry in their diary about that day. Did it change their life? Had they completely forgotten about it until something happened that reminded them? Was it a good day? Bad day? Have they forgotten it all together? 10min

2:25 If students have written a letter get them to exchange it with someone else. Have volunteers read out their own journal entry or a letter that was sent to them. 5-10min

2:35 Line of Allegiance: Did the man’s crying have a positive or negative effect on people? Have a discussion on what was found out during the class. Reveal the entire poem if it seems appropriate. Consider questions like:
Why are people afraid to show emotion in public?
Was there anything supernatural involved?
Who is this man or what is he symbolic of?
What else can have a ripple effect?
Can we change the world? 10min

If Time Allows: Hot-seat some characters about their experience at the scene. Reveal the poem hot-seat the crying man about his life and what he went on to day that day, or a few years on.
Come up with a plan as a class how you can have a positive effect on other people and change your environment, perhaps making an effort to say one nice thing a day to people. Being leaders in the school and setting an example of the kind of culture that should exist.
Homework: Do something at home to make a positive change, may be subtle and report back next lesson or write about it in journal.
Evaluation: Look for student engagement with activities, are they finishing quickly or taking longer. Pay attention in the discussion at the end of the lesson, whether it inspired them or it’s like pulling teeth to get anything meaningful out of them.

An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow

By Les Murray
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There’s a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can’t stop him.
The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile
and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk
and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There’s a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.
The man we surround, the man no one approaches
simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps
not like a child, not like the wind, like a man
and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even
sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping
holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him
in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,
and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize him
stare out at him, and feel, with amazement, their minds
longing for tears as children for a rainbow.
Some will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around him. There is no such thing.
Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him
but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,
the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us
trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream
who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children
and such as look out of Paradise come near him
and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.
Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit—
and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand
and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;
as many as follow her also receive it
and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,
the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out
of his writhen face and ordinary body
not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,
hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea—
and when he stops, he simply walks between us
mopping his face with the dignity of one
man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.
Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.

from
The Weatherboard Cathedral, 1969

Reference: Murray, L. (2007). An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow. Retrieved April 16, 2007, from http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_aor.htm