TEAM Educational Theatre Company works dramatic magic with its plays in schools, writes Arminta Wallace
"It's the morning of the Leaving Cert English paper and 'Clods' is writing an essay about a turning point in her life. Simple. It's just her ex-boyfriend Jayo is all over the inside of her head, and she can't get her act together for the most important three hours of her life. Her thoughts turn to the summer before when herself and Jayo, along with his sister Nicci and a musician friend Alex spent the weekend at a music festival called 'Fusion' . . . "
It's Friday morning, and the library of Holy Child Community School in Dublin's Sallynoggin has been transformed into a performance space for the visit of TEAM Educational Theatre Company. As the quartet of youthful actors launches into the storyline summarised above, there is a bit of uneasy shuffling of chairs and the occasional giggle. Hardly surprising, since the performance is in the round, the players up close and pretty personal with the audience. But as the action proceeds, the alchemy that is theatre begins to work its magic - helped by the ice-breaking wave of laughter that greets the news that one of the characters in the drama has been suspended from school for attacking a classmate called "Sudsy". Good choice of name, Sudsy. There's probably a Sudsy in every secondary school between here and Skibbereen.
Another successful TEAM gig, then? "They were spellbound," is how the school's art teacher, Andrea Lyons, sums up the students' reaction to the play. The artistic director of TEAM, Martin Murphy, agrees that today's performance of Kevin Lavin's Fusion went down well - not that it's always easy to tell, when you're playing to a teenage audience. "If you get a 'bad' reaction, nine times out of 10 it's something completely outside your control which is going on in the class, or in the school. The mood of an entire class can be affected by some incident you're not even aware of.
"Actors sometimes make the mistake of thinking it's down to some deficiency on their part. They say: 'Oh - the students are talking while I'm performing. I must be rubbish.' But sometimes it's just that it's so good, they've got to talk to each other about it . . ." As it happens, the fifth and sixth years from Holy Child are fairly experienced theatre-goers; but in any case, Murphy stresses that the purpose of a school visit from TEAM has nothing to do with the development of a future audience for theatre in Ireland. "Obviously we would hope that some of the students will turn out to be the audiences of the future. But lots of them won't," he says. "One of the most important things about TEAM is that it doesn't just serve children who are interested in the arts - it serves all children."
The company was formed in the mid-1970s by a group of actors and directors who had come together in the Young Abbey. "There was this idea at the time - particularly because of what people had experienced themselves at school - that the whole world of 'school' and 'education' needed to be exploded," says Murphy. "Nowadays schools are up to speed with where we're coming from to a much greater degree, and it's very much a partnership process."
Each year the company offers two programmes, one for primary level and one for post-primary: Fusion has been in action since mid-September, and will have clocked up a total of 65 performances by the time its run finishes early next month. Funding comes from the Arts Council, with key contributions from the Department of Education and Science, and local authorities play an increasingly important role. The cost to schools is kept as low as possible, and currently works out at €6 to €7 per pupil per programme.
The biggest priority for TEAM, according to Martin Murphy, is to get the "theatre" and "education" balance right. "We work from the principle that you start with a play - a good play," he says. Mostly this takes the form of a new piece commissioned from an Irish writer. The subject matter varies widely, but is always carefully matched to the prospective audience. A recent programme for junior and senior infants, Bumbógs and Bees, was structured around a bad day at a beehive. It embraced environmental awareness and taught children to recognise different kinds of bee as well as the crucial distinction between bees and wasps. It also encouraged singing, dancing, poetry and painting-based class activities to do with everything from pollination to living in communities.
At post-primary level, topics have ranged from homelessness to the conundrums posed by the current play, Fusion, with its underlying themes of decision-making, goal-setting, ambition and dealing with setbacks - topics of obvious interest to Leaving Cert students.
"You have to be careful that it doesn't only become about the questions," says Murphy. "If it's too issue-driven, the play will get played down. This is art form as methodology - so it's about finding a balance. We distinguish between theatre and drama. Theatre is the show that is presented; drama is what you experience when you watch the show."
Equally important - if not more so - is the discussion and role-playing that takes place in the workshops, which is facilitated by the actors following each performance.
If the visit is to be effective, the role of the school is crucial - and, as the company's education officer Muireann Ahern explains, the demands made by the company on each school are considerable. "It's not just a matter of putting on a play," she says. "The whole programme, from my first visit approximately two weeks before the performance, and including two follow-up visits afterwards, takes from eight to 10 weeks." It involves teachers' resource packs, pupils' workbooks, and a good deal of effort from everybody. "We don't compromise," says Ahern. "We won't play in small spaces. We won't take second years to make up the numbers. We need teachers to sit in at every stage - so other teachers have to be hired to take their classes. It's a big commitment for the school."
Understandably, given the pressures that pertain in an already stretched educational system, tempers occasionally get frayed. The company recently encountered coolness - if not outright hostility - from a principal who found their presence in his school disruptive. So positive was the feedback from parents and pupils, however, that he relented - and has already booked TEAM for next year. It's hard to imagine such a scenario at Holy Child, where everybody has been welcoming and enthusiastic, and the general atmosphere strikingly positive and upbeat.
As the play unfolds I notice a number of older people sitting in the front row. Parents, perhaps? "Mature Leaving Cert students," I'm told.
Schools, it seems, aren't what they used to be. And further changes are on the way - even at primary level, where the imminent arrival of a new drama curriculum will force everybody, including groups such as TEAM, to rethink where theatre studies should fit into the bigger picture.
At post-primary level, Murphy says, schools have probably changed even more over the past 30 years than TEAM has. He points to the increasing influence of psychology in even the most basic assumptions and situations. All of which, he says, is good news for those with an interest in the place where art meets education. "It's potentially a very exciting time for the arts in education; but it all needs to be approached in the right way. We've been championing - as I know other arts organisations have - the idea of some sort of integrated system for arts in schools. Some structure whereby arts organisations could sit down with educators and figure out how best to deliver a fruitful product."
Meanwhile, back at the post-performance workshop, the students are getting to grips with the issues raised by Fusion - and with the sudden realisation that the actors are people with different names and personalities to those of the characters they played just a couple of hours earlier. A debate develops over whether Alex, the musician from the play, should stick to his guns and pursue a career as a musician despite several fairly major hiccups, or give up and "get a proper job". The vast majority of students insist that he should plug away at his music. "But they've told me I'm useless," argues Will Irvine, aka Alex. "You're deadly! Just ignore them!" one young man fires back - to the amusement of all.
Irvine has just graduated from the drama course at Trinity College, Dublin - as has Aoife Duffin, who plays "Clods".
"I remember seeing a theatre-in- education show myself while I was at school in Downpatrick, and it seemed to me very preachy and didactic," he says. "This one isn't like that. We're encouraging the students to come to their own conclusions. We're not pushing simple answers or happy-ever-after solutions. We want to make the point that there are no easy solutions to these questions."
Patronising, he says, is definitely off the agenda. As the workshop continues, the discussions become more intense. Do priorities change as we get older? Is it difficult to have priorities that are different from the majority?
"Insane people," a student says at one point, quick as a flash, "are exceptions." You'd patronise these kids at your peril.
Fusion continues at post-primary schools in Dublin and Wicklow until mid-December
