Day Two of WAC workshop

THURSDAY 6TH MARCH

Well, its day two of our workshop with the team from WAC and I have to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and I’ve definitely learnt stuff that I could employ in the future, especially when considering our story for Theatre for Development and the art of Storytelling. But then I’m getting ahead of myself.

We started the class with a few Yoga stretches. To be exact, we did the Salutation to the Sun moved down to do some leg muscle stretches before moving into the cobra and down into the cat, finishing off leg stretches, body twisted and our heads looking upwards into the ceiling. We did that about 3 times before we moved into doing some games.

First off, we played the zoom game, which I’ve played several times over, and I’d have to say that this round of zoom was the fastest and funniest ever. We ran this through several times until Penny started handing out slips of paper that we had to read and keep to ourselves, not divulging anything to anyone. My bit of paper read: Take all the chairs to the windows at the right. Everybody was divided into 3 groups. The first group was mine; we had to take all the chairs (15 in all) to the windows on the right side of the room. The two other groups had to do the same thing, only one had to take it to the centre of the room, the last team had to take the chairs to the doors on the left side of the room.

Now, the thing about this game is that all fifteen chairs have to be at the window, door and centre of the room at the same time, which was impossible to say the least. Everybody fought for the chairs. Some stole whatever chairs were laid for the other teams; others fought, pulled, screamed and laughed their way around. It was a very challenging, tiring and yet fun game. In this game, there were no winners or losers – just a bunch of tired people trying to work their way around the problem.

From playing that game, I’ve learnt to think outside the box. There are instances when I can’t see my way through a problem, and I would need the help of others to work out a solution that might work or it might not, but at least we worked out something. If you wanted to know, we thought of arranging the chairs in a big circle that encompassed all three areas: the window, the door and the centre of the room to complete the game, although it seemed right to us, it was only a possible solution to the problem of the game.

After that game, we sat down to watch WAC do their first performance, a theatre for development piece focusing on Suicide.

The play was about a young couple; the girl was from a typical rural Indian family and the boy was of Fijian and Part-European (?) origins. Their names were, Preeya and Jerry. Preeya’s parents wanted her to have a traditional arranged marriage with another respectable Indian family, but she wanted to marry Jerry instead. Involved in the story is Preeya’s want to complete her education and become a teacher but her father wanted her to get married and then let her future husband decide whether or not she could complete her teaching courses.

In the course of the story, Preeya was pressured by Jerry to run away and elope with him, but she wanted to remain on good terms with her parents. In the end, she took her own life. After her funeral, her brother left the family and started drinking, losing himself until Jerry found him and took Preeya’s brother to his (Jerry’s) place to sort himself out and do something with his life. Preeya in the afterlife was given a chance to see what consequences her actions had on each member of the family and on Jerry.

Overall, I thought the play was ok. To be honest, I thought the storyline could do with a little more brushing up. The actors were in the right emotional setting for their characters but some, e.g. the mother, were a little over-the-top with the way they presented themselves.