VIRTUALITIES Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs
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ISSN 1994-1250 VIRTUALITIES Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Virtual Reality, Roleplaying, Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Freeform Live Action Roleplaying Games Volume Nine, Issue Two June 2016 Society of Interactive Dram VIRTUALITIES Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs http://www.interactivedramas.info/journal.htm A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Virtual Reality, Roleplaying, Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Freeform Live Action Roleplaying Games Volume Nine, Issue Two June 2016 Interactive Drama Archive http://www.interactivedramas.info ISSN 1994-1250 Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Virtual Reality, Roleplaying, Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Volume 9.2, June 2016 Contents Moving Participants to Assist the Elderly: Measuring the Empathy Generated by Performance (Mary Giffin) ................................................. 1 Space as a Metaphor for Circumscription: A Reading of Fugard’s Valley Song (Busuyi Mekusi) ....................................................................... 15 Teaching Acting (Francesco Di Vincenzo) ....................................................... 35 Setting a Table Round: Stone, Wood, Cardboard, and Space-Age Plastics (Transformations in the Presentation of the Establishment of the Round Table in Arthurian Romances) (Brian David Phillips) ....... 39 Spy Game Two: A House Divided (Christopher Barkley) ............................... 67 Call for Papers and Notes for Contributors ................................................... 239 VIRTUALITIES Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Virtual Reality, Roleplaying, Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Freeform Live Action Roleplaying Games Editor Scott Beattie, PhD Staff and Curriculum Development, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia Editorial Board Michael C. Cheng, MA Lecturer, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan Jonathan Elcock, PhD Field Chair of Psychology, University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH Associate Professor, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan Alan Schwartz, PhD Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States Kreg Segall, PhD Lecturer, Suffolk County Community College, United States Allen Stroud, MA Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Video Production, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, England VIRTUALITIES Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs A Multi-Discipline Peer-Reviewed Journal of Virtual Reality, Roleplaying, Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Freeform Live Action Roleplaying Games Editor Scott Beattie, PhD Staff and Curriculum Development, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia Editorial Policy The Virtualities Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs is an international journal dedicated to the publication of critical discussion and scenarios related to Virtual Reality, Interactive Drama, Interactive Fiction, Scenario-Based Theatre-Style Interactive Drama Freeform Live Action Roleplaying Games and welcomes contributions in all areas of the study, design, and creation of stand-alone scenario-based LARPS as well as Scenario-Based Learning related to interactive dramas of this type. Review articles of books related to interactive drama and informal book announcements are also welcome. Critical pieces on scenarios or convention events are welcome. Stand-alone scenarios are encouraged for submission with designer notes and running commentary. Submissions are peer-reviewed. Contributions may be submitted from all countries and are accepted all year round. The language of publication is English. There are no restrictions on regular submission; however, manuscripts simultaneously submitted to other publications cannot be accepted without express notice and permissions for simultaneous publication. Submissions by regular mail and electronic mail are both accepted. Submission Evaluation Submissions to the Virtualities Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs are put through a process of blind peer review evaluated within a system of Accept or Un-Accept model. There are no conditional acceptances for pieces submitted to this journal. Submissions are evaluated by respected academics with specialties in fields related to the nature of the submission. Distribution and Community The Journal of Virtual Realities, Interactive Dramas, and Literary Constructs is published online at http://www.interactivedramas.info/journal.htm and in press format using pdf distribution media. The journal is normally published regularly as an ongoing concern with submissions considered as they are received. You may find the current issue and past issues archived at http://www.interactivedramas.info/journal.htm on the world wide web. The journal is associated with the scenario archive at http://www.interactivedramas.info. The online discussion forum associated with the journal and the scenario archive/workshop is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InteractiveDramatist. This forum includes online workshop for interactive dramatists to post draft versions of scenarios for community comments as well as for them to share their material with other directors to run in different venues. Virtualities Vol. 9.2, June, 2016 MOVING PARTICIPANTS TO ASSIST THE ELDERLY MEASURING THE EMPATHY GENERATED BY PERFORMANCE Mary Giffin INTRODUCTION Scholars of applied theatre have expressed the need for evaluation of the impact of applied theater on participants. Taylor (2003) stresses that ‘theatre workers need constantly to appraise whether they are achieving the aims and objectives they have outlined’ (104), not only for the purposes of convincing grant makers to support our work, but also to assess and improve the effectiveness of our practice. For these reasons, we need to measure not only the immediate responses to a performance but also the long-term effects on those who take part in the experience, especially changes in their behavior over time. Osterland (2013) declares, ‘If we want to prove what we believe – that drama affects participants in a deep and lasting manner – we need far more qualified and carefully designed evaluations and evaluative research (104).’ Etherton and Prentki (2006) have called for 1 Mary Giffin ‘assessing the impact upon an individual, group, or community in terms of permanent changes in behavior and attitude’ (144). In the hope of adding to the growing body of impact research in applied theatre, the project presented here measured both the immediate empathic response of participants and the changes in their behavior over time as a result of taking part in the theatre event. PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT This project measured the impact of a performance and the follow-up discussion, both of which were intended to promote empathy in the participants. Empathy is defined here as involvement with the emotions of a character that leads to a willingness or desire to seek out and help someone in need. Hartley (2012) distinguishes empathy from sympathy, which ‘enables a connection, an affiliation, without becoming lost in the issue, acknowledging feelings that are similar, rather than searching for the sameness’ (8). Empathy, by contrast, requires stepping into another’s situation and identifying with their feelings. When a performance reveals the inner life of its character, listeners are encouraged to take the same emotional journey, exploring and sharing the feelings of the speaker. In the monologue in this project, the character is an elderly woman who is about to give up hope because she has been excluded and ignored by those around her. The ultimate goal of the project was to see whether empathy developed at the time of the performance could lead participants to take social action in the long term to support frail elderly people. Etherton and Prentki call empathy ‘the cornerstone of theatrical communication’. They point out that in forum theatre, for example, empathy is ‘the force that drives Boal’s spect-actor to intervene to alter the outcome of a scene through the emotional investment in the situation of the character’ (146). The present study examines and 2 Moving Participants to Assist the Elderly measures both parts of this dynamic: the degree of emotional investment made in response to a performance and the amount of social action taken by each participant. Unlike participants in forum theatre, however, the individuals in this study did not take part in the play’s action. They watched and responded to a short monologue, then took an active part in the discussion that followed it. They shared the emotions they experienced, as well as the solutions they imagined for the character’s situation. For this reason, the participant groups were kept small (5-35 people) so that each person could take full advantage of the opportunity for discussion that followed the performance. The results indicate that participants need not be actor/co-creators or spect-actors to experience both empathy and the transformation that leads to social action. Enactment of solutions need not occur in the theatre to be carried out and have ensuing benefit in the world,