Devon's a Prison?

I've been roped into doing a number of things in the start of my "summer break" here in Exeter.

1:
I'm playing Hortensio/Sophocles, or "The Best Friend" character, in an MFA Staging Shakespeare director's final project: "The Taming of the Tamer ... Tamed." It's a splicing of scenes from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, and The Tamer Tamed, a play by someone named Fletcher (he has a first name, I don't know it) which was written as a kind of sequel, but much later. They're spliced so as to try to form one complete story between the two of them.

Because I was busily involved in my Music and Theatre piece - setting "Shall I Compare Thee..." to music in a variety of different devised-theatre ways, I missed the first week of rehearsal. When I did show up, they were already on their feet, and the cast was mostly American MFA Staging Shakespeare actors. So, professional actors who came here to study Shakespeare.

Needless to say, little old me, who hadn't acted in 6 months, was completely blown out of the water and brought to contrition. And I loved it. And I continue to.

2.
A guy from "The Taming of the Tamer...Tamed" asked me to help him out with HIS final MFA Staging Shakespeare project, a 50's-style radio play presentation of Hamlet and Titus Andronicus as a "cultural hour" for a cold-war audience, until the acting turns real. It's odd. But interesting. I've never done radio drama before, and even though it's actually live, it's fun to at least touch on it. Radio drama still happens here in England. I think it's largely unheard of in the States. I wish there was more of it.

3.
Music and Theatre is taking our final, mentioned above, to Germany at the beginning of July, as I've mentioned before. However, it's with half the people, and the comments we got back on it don't really make any of us feel like we should be presenting this piece at a scholarly conference. Hopefully, though, we'll get everything together and it'll be great.


HOWEVER, these three large pulls on my life have taught me a few things:

For one, the Music and Theatre presentation really makes me wonder about theatre outside of America. Is this what there is, not "British Drama," there's no Laurence Olivier and no intensely crafted acting - is it all just devised theatre? Because I haven't encountered much theatre at Exeter that ISN'T devised. Am I wrong to hate devised theatre? Because I really do. Not unconditionally, of course, but I really just hate it. And I don't know what I'm doing with it, and I wonder (although I've done no research into it and am utterly ignorant of what is so often reverantly reffered to as "the devising process") does anyone REALLY know what they're doing when devising? What's the state of devised theatre in America? Cause it seems to me like it's just a cheap way to get people to act, which can be taken different ways. Either it's good, because it allows people to experience theatre no matter what. Yes, that's cool, I love that part! But the other hand is this: devising theatre is what a department does when it can't pay for actual plays ... or doesn't want to. And in that, I find it a misleading financial tactic. Am I an ignorant prig, or am I actually having an honest reaction?

Secondly, the reason that I bring up financial issues is that I really want to know what the state of British drama education is. Because we're force fed this idea of British Training being the upmost state of acting perfection. It's like a club card you can wave around to get into V.I.P. rooms, a silver bullet to shoot through auditions with. People will FIGHT over you if you have British training, or at least, that's the impression I had.

I've found no "British Training" here at Exeter, and the thing that bothers me, is that there are post-grad students, who are mostly from North America, who have similar thoughts. They're largely up in arms because they feel as though they've been asked to pay three times as much as a British student, and they haven't recieved any professional skills. One that I talked to even thought he'd gotten worse over his time in Exeter. There is the perception that they have been duped into a money-making scheme by the department. And so the question is, do I really want to continue to have anything to do with, or defend, a department that is charged with that kind of conduct? I've stuck up for Exeter drama pretty decently out of the three Kenyon-Exeter drama students, though I haven't gone further above some level of ambivalence. Has my confidence been completely misplaced, even on an ethical level?

I just thought I should write about that. I missed my chance to tell Exeter exactly what I thought of them because I was blindsided by the feedback session - and clammed up. I still wonder whether it's just the fact that I'm American that's somehow coloring my vision, but I don't think so. And so, in part, I'm writing to other Americans who might be thinking of going to Exeter drama (even though I'm pretty sure none of them read this blog):

I have had a lacking experience with Exeter Drama. I find faults in how I've been treated by the administration. There are some good classes and plenty of good students, but the good classes are the theoretical ones, where there're books to use in your defense. Other than that there are few rules, few agreed-on concepts, few life-lessons that can be articulated, and little "technique" that you learn in any of the dramatic fields. Or at least, I haven't found any. But there are professionals who share my opinion.

And now I'm stuck until the very end of my time in England - Europe even - involved in a project I would rather just abandon, frankly. I'll do it, but I can't seem to find much fun in it, because I have no idea how to make it work. I think they've pushed through a system that states no requirements, teaches no methods, but still finds a way to grade, even though it's not always clear how to make what we're supposed to make. And so how can we fix something we don't know how we broke?

And I'm tired of defending Exeter Drama when it's treated me like this, when it's incensed its post-graduate students, and when it's keeping me, in part, from going and enjoying my summer. I signed on to Hildesheim thinking it would be a great experience. But I want out, and I know I can't get out. Either that, or I want to know how to fix this, but I don't think anyone will teach me. So I'm going to try to figure it out, but I don't know how well that will work. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to drop a line.

** Sorry to sound really pessimistic, and, dare I say, emo. But I just finally sort of concluded what I thought about Exeter Drama, and I wanted to get the word out. Question me, encourage me, suggest things to me, or wait for another - brighter - post. But thank you for continuing with the blog so far. **