NADT defines Drama Therapy as the systematic and intentional use of drama/theater processes, products, and associations to achieve the therapeutic goals of symptom relief, emotional and physical integration and personal growth. In a drama therapy session, clients are led to tell their stories and express emotions which might have been in their unpleasant past. Sometimes they might tell a secret or show negative behavior. A well-trained drama therapist can deal with them and have a satisfying and positive outcome However, since a therapists thought and emotions can affect their clients, there is the possibility of being allured into thinking you are a somebody who can do anything without regulation or ethical standards. Drama therapy is for humans, especially people in trouble, it is not too much to emphasize the importance of ethics in drama therapy. Besides the NADT Code of Ethical Principles, there are some other things that we, as a drama therapist, must be aware of, such as regulations of the organization for which we work, HIPAA(The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, laws of states and the Federal Law. The following issues are the examples that we can violate those regulations or be faced with a dilemma with them.
The spirit of Capitalism and Protestantism created a culture of work ethic. People in this culture might feel worthless, if they are not always busying with something productive. This psychological tendency make people think that play is something silly and childish in our contemporary society. Play has been considered as something that only children do and need for their education and growth. From the childhood, we have been told stories of The Hare and the Tortoise and The Ants and the Grasshopper. And we have been taught by parents and teachers that hard working would give us blessing with achievement, and play without working would be a sin of useless action and wasting time, so we all have a hypnotic message which we might be punished if we played a lot. But as we experienced in the class, each of us, as an adult, enjoyed playing and got something valuable from playing.
The Way of ReturnSCENE 1(The lights come up. JACOB and BERT run onto the stage out of breath. BOB lies curled up on the corner and sleeps in a sleeping bag with some papers on his face.)JACOB(still gasping)Oh, man, I'm dying.BERT(looking at his watch)Late? ha?JACOBI don't know. I think we're on time, but why is nobody here... and... it's too quiet.BERTYa... too quiet. If we're late, what're we gonna do?JACOBWell... nothing. We have nothing to do, if we missed...BERTNo way! Don't you know where we are? It's the most dangerous place in the world. My dad warned me not to go around at night in New York before I left home.JACOBSpecially at the subway station at night. You're right. But what can we do? Let's wait for a moment. I think there will be a train, the last train for today.BERTI hope so.(Beat)(Both JACOB and BERT sit with their backs against the pillar.)BERT (cont'd)No more. We missed it. It's almost three o'clock. What time did he say the last train comes?JACOBThree o'clock.BERTThehe's dead? No man.JACOBWho can survive such a terrible accident? And if she is still alive, she may freeze to death in such terrible cold weather.BERTWhat're we gonna do then? If she's dead, I become a murderer? Oh my God.JACOBJust be quiet and stay here for whole night. And we can take the first train in the morning. This is the best place to hide ourselves. See? Nobody is here. And it's so quiet.(Pause. BOB moans.)BERTWhat's that? Did you hear that?JACOBWhat?BERTSomebody's there, moaning.JACOBReally? I didn't hear anything...BERTSh...(Pause. BOB moans.)JACOBWho's there? Who are you?(JACOB stands up and starts to sneak up to BOB. BERT holds JACOB's arm and stops him.)BERTWait. Maybe he heard everything we talked about.(JACOB gestures for him to be quiet and continues to sneak. JACOB takes out his dagger. When he sees BOB, he pounces at BOB and aims his dagger at BOB)JACOB(wobbling voice)Don't move or you will die! Who are you?(BOB moans.)JACOB (cont'd)(to BERT) Hey, come here.(BERT apSweepers? Damn it! It's too cold. No matter who you are, don't bother me, ok? It's too cold here to wake up.JACOP(to BERT) Let's go. (to BOB) Sorry for bothering you.BERTWhat? He was just sleeping. (to BOB) Hey, how... what did you hear? no... I mean... you're sleeping here and... Did you notice us coming here?BOBTravelers? Oh, (laugh) I thought you're the bitches to come to kick me off.BERTI said, did you hear anything from us?BOBHey, do you know how many people walk by me in a day? If I try to listen to everyone's talking, my ears would burst, ok? I've shut my ears for a long time.JACOBBERT! Let's go.(JACOB and BERT turns around and are about to leave.)BOB(still closes eyes)But I know who you are.BERT(turns back) What? You know who we are?JACOBCome on, Bert. Don't listen.BOB(opens his eyes)Yes, I know. You are travelers who are running away from the nightmare.JACOBYou heard? If you know us and heard everything we talked about, I can't help killing you.BOBAll right. But go back to you fight against the dragon? I don't have any sword or shield. How can I fight with my nightmare? Do you know how to...JACOBBert, do you believe him? He is crazy.BOB(smiles)It's not easy. I know. But it can be a possibility if you are armed with the strongest sword. Do you wanna get armed?JACOBNo. I want you to just shut up, ok?BERTYes, I want. My life is just a misery. I've never had success. Nobody supported me. I... was alone. I am... alone. I feel lonely, you know? Just a repetition of mistakes and misfortunes. I... I killed...JACOBHey, what... what are you gonna tell him? Are you crazy?BOBDon't worry, gentleman. Nobody is here except us. Go ahead. You killed someone. Tut, tut. So you eliminated a dragon.BERTNo, she's not an enemy, she's just a victim just like me. It was just a mistake. She made me angry. If she didn't tell me that... For me, the whole world is a full of sorrow and enemies. I wanna get armed so that I can fight with the world.BOBWhat for? Why do you want to fight wiis chest? or My chest?BOBBoth. Then, go back to your place where you wanna run away from.BERTI can't. I committed murder. If I go back there, ... I...BOBEven if you go to the jail, do whatever your mind tells you. You regret? Then, forgive yourself. There is something you can do. Go right now. She needs you.BERTWho? The woman that I...JACOBNo way! Don't listen to him! Let's go, Bert.BERTYou mean, she is still alive?BOBThink of what makes you happy. To run away with a guilty and worried mind, or to be responsible and to do what you can. Which one makes you happy?JACOBDon't listen to him! Bert, let's away from this nasty old bastard. Come on!BERT(To himself) What makes me happy? ... Be responsible?BOBOpen the chest.(A voice of train coming announcement. BERT opens the chest. BOB exits.)JACOBIt's coming! Great! Bert, let's go.(BERT still looks inside the chest and makes no response to JACOB.)JACOB (cont'd)Bert! Are you listen to me? Let's go. We have no choice but take this train and go aT 13
My Neighbor’s Stories, Classical PlaysThe Greek plays have been strongly recommended to theatrical people. This is not only because they are considered as first plays from which most modern plays are still getting counsel, but also they have significant meanings about human lives in their contents. Greek plays, along with Shakespeare’s and lots of plays which are written long ago and have been read throughout the ages, are called, “classical play.” But what is the definition of “classical?” This term is not used only for theatre but for all branches of culture. Luck (1958), in his article “Scriptor Classicus,” stated as following:It is tempting to think of the “classical” as a kind of lighthouse or a promontory, as some changeless phenomenon of art or nature or both, or as an ancient priesthood whose membership has remained constant throughout the ages. The concept of “classicality” has found its way into art, literature, music, fashion, and trade. But it has come to mean so many thingcause they have timeless and universal meanings? We may get a chance to answer them when we read a following modern adaptation of Greek tragedy;Whoever--whatever--you are that’s doing this to me, please stop. In my dreams he comes to me-not night after night--that’d be too predictable, I could fortify myself. No, he waits until I’m mourning for him and then he makes love to me. … My parched lungs drink deep and long wet breaths of salt air. But I can’t anymore, I can’t… I can’t… Whatever you are—why destroy me? I know you want to punish William. Then make him love me. Wouldn’t that be revenge? Make him love me. (Maguire, 1995, Phaedra, ed. Svich, 2005, Divine Fire, p.147)This is Faye’s exclamation, who can’t stop loving her stepson, William. Here Phaedra in Euripides’s Hippolytus and Racine’s Phaedra is called Faye, Hippolytus is named William in today’s upper-class American home. She is struggling with her desire not to act upon her lust. She neither means to love him nor wants to be e in present people’s lives and struggling with their free wills.In Greek mythology and plays, heroes and even gods are not free from fate. They are suffered from or blessed by the absolute power which no one can refuse. The power sways them into their destiny. But what does the absolute power in ancient Greek plays have meaning to us? Maguire alludes to mothers as the power to explain what forces Faye to be captive by her desire and William to refuse erotic love just like Hippolytus hates women;FAYE It’s worse than when my mother . . . it’s worse. (p.127)FAYE There’s nothing but constant slashes. (p.127)NONNY You sound like your mother! (p.146)WILLIAM He’s a rapist! . . . I’m made of rape! . . . Sex makes me sick! (p.158)Mee. C.L., in his play True Love, adapted from Euripides’ Hippolytus and originally staged in 2001, expresses the power by means of secondary characters’ confessing their childhood in raucous, bawdy, and comical story. He introduces them so that the audience can underhatred, and hubris. These elements are deeply related with today’s conflict among people, organizations, and nations. No one can say that we are free from them. Their conflicts and desires are, per se, ours. Hence Greek tragedies still can raise our tension and bring us catharsis. The story of Phaedra’s love toward her stepson, which can be regard as a shameful to tell or even think of, but in fifth century B.C.E., in ancient Athens, where reputation and chastity were best virtue, was written in a play and acted out in public. This shows us its greatness as a classical play, for it tells us, today’s audience, as well as contemporary people, how strongly love and sexual desire can affect human beings and their social relationship, and they can cause a tragedy if it is mismanaged. Mee, in his play True love, explains how characters can be affected by love and how they are in both his play and Euripides’ at the beginning of the play in voice of radio talk show;SHIRLEY . . . when you are mre two plays that we can compare to each other, but the same role in each plot;CHORUS Fortune grant me this, I pray, at heaven’s hand, a happy lot in life and a soul from sorrow free; opinions let me hold not too precise nor yet too hollow; but, lightly changing my habits to each morrow as it comes, may I thus attain a life of bliss!(trans. By Coleridge, 2004, Hippolytus, eBooks@Adelaide)TALK SHOW VOICE You won’t even be the same person tomorrow. Things go by so fast, and then they’re gone. Your children grow up and get married and you never tool the time to look at them. (True Love, p. 274)With modern playwrights’ adaptations, we can see Greek Tragedies have not only old stories based on mythology, but also quintessence of human agony, conflict, despair, and hope. Characters who are struggling with their fate and curses are not strangers to us, for we are struggling in complicated societies in interpersonal relationships, psychological, ethical, and political values to find the very lAT 5
Response to Aristotle's PoeticsAristotle is one of the most effective philosophers in the world. His thought and ideas have influenced on many academic areas: poetics, politics, ethics, logic, physics, biology, etc. His influence does not stop flowing by western societies, but also on modern eastern cultures. As the other areas, his principal ideas in Poetics have influenced on fundamental study of theatre. Aristotle, when he develops his ideas, illustrates his artistic principles by his contemporary Greek plays. It is because he is an empirical philosopher compared with his preceptor, Plato, who puts his emphasis on the metaphysical world, "idea". Moreover, he does not explain certain key term, such as "action," "pathos," "catharsis." To me, as a modern reader of it for the first time, it was a kind of ancient scripture difficult to understand. For the benefit of introduction in the book and the lecture in class, I could understand core of the principle but not the entire ideas, for m in the fourth century B.C.. Most of all, in terms of purgation of pity and fear, he penetrates through why people, even today's audience, see and prefer tragedies. The action (praxis) which Aristotle usually means both of pathetic and ethical motivation from which deeds spring has universality up to a person in today. This action makes a story and a playwright has something to plot it for a stage When it is serious, complete, and magnitude, it ends with tragic denouement, and it derives pitiful and fearful emotion from the audience. We, the audience, are purged of our emotions and reconciled to our fate and experience catharsis, because now we understand and recognize the action as the universal human lot. This is why and how he can say "pleasure in tragedy."This concept of catharsis and pleasure of tragedy has a certain relationship with drama therapy. Robert J. Landy says about catharsis in his Drama Therapy;Catharsis in drama therapy does not need to be a large outburst of feeling,very safety environment, so she can get pleasure from the tragedy, just like a client from a drama therapy session.2. Parts of Tragedy, Unity, and Dramatic StructureAristotle says that every tragedy must have six parts, which are Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, and Song. And he places these parts in order of importance. The Plot is the first principle and the soul of a tragedy. He gives many space for explaining the Plot. The Spectacle is the least artistic and depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet. Though a dramatic principle has changed little through history and applies to all plays in all ages, Aristotle's list of dramatic principles needs to be amended, at least because Song is not necessary in a fine tragedy. Moreover, today's plays tend to be more complex than Aristotle's contemporary tragedies and Diction is become less important, as we call them playwright instead of poets. Presupposing that how difficult to define the dramatic pis an imitation of an action, he defines, and an action is motivation of deeds, though the plot has more than one story and one hero, a tragedy can have the structural union of the parts. It is right even for modern movies, for example, the movie, "Love Actually," is an omnibus-style which has several plots of several stories, but all the stories of heroes have an action which is motivated by love. Unity is the absolute and essential relation of all the parts to the whole, Downs and Wright define.For the dramatical structure of a tragedy, in Chapter Ⅶ, Aristotle says, as his definition of tragedy, that the plot must be complete, whole, and of a certain magnitude. It means that the plot must imitate both pathetically and ethically motivated action, must has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the object to imitate must be of a certain magnitude. The magnitude can indicates an action, but also main characters, as he says, explaining the distinction between tragedy and comedy; tragedy day's theatre is subdivided into, like balance, obstacle, crises, conflict, dark moment, enlightenment, climax, catharsis, etc. He also refers to Complex and Simple plots. Complex plot includes reversal and recognition, and Simple plot does not include these elements. He maintains that the poet should endeavor, if possible, to combine all poetic elements. However Francis Fergusson, in his introduction of Aristotle's Poetic, examples The Death of a Salesman as a model of modern play which has Simple plot. (p.19), Aristotle's preference is significant to our modern theatre, because, if there is no reversal and recognition at the end, the pleasure of tragedy may be diminished by a lack of catharsis.Aristotle's Poetics was written in thousands of years ago, but still has crucial and fundamental meanings in study of theatre and other arts. This is because all arts have their universality in terms of the life of human. The life and its agony, pleasure, and despair are not different from any 5