Well? Issue 10: Spring/Summer 2007

20 Well? Relationships
Visible Fiction
One cold Saturday morning, a group of six young
people met at the Boy’s Brigade building in Stirling
with a mission.
Their mission was to find a way
of creatively and collectively
representing the voice and
opinions of the young people
who had attended the
In Ma Heid, Oot Ma Heid (IMH)
conference, which had focused
on young people’s relationships
with their friends, family and
school.
The group was made up of young
people who had been on the IMH
steering group, together with members
of East Ayrshire Youth Theatre,
providing a good mix of conference and
drama experience. Visible Fictions, one
of Scotland’s leading theatre
companies, was to lead the production,
which would be presented at the
HeadsUpScotland conference Inspire,
Include, Improve in two weeks’ time.
Here, Brenda Murphy from Visible
Fictions describes how the production
took shape over the course of the
weekend:
“One of the main themes that had
come out of IMH was of young people
‘feeling one way and feeling they have
to act in another’.
“Following a warm-up exercise based
on truth and lies, we agreed that the
drama could be created from material
that is based on the group’s own
experience, that of others, a distortion
of the truth or pure imagination – but
that we didn’t have to identify what
came from where.
“IMH had produced lots of stories and
opinions so we had plenty of other
people’s truth to work with. But we
only had a couple of days to create the
piece and very little rehearsal time, so
we needed to create something simple
and effective.
“We decided on a form that would
show young people in situations where
they felt they had to behave in certain
ways, and pre-recorded monologues
would tell what was going on in their
heads. The contrast of seeing someone
performing minimal actions on stage,
but being led into the complexities of
their thoughts was very effective and
appealed to us. The only dialogue
would be the recorded monologues, so
that meant there were no lines to learn.
The group worked on an individual level
and in small groups to create material
but we all worked together to edit and
develop it. We worked carefully and
sensitively to ensure that everyone was
happy with any changes, aware that
some of the material might be based
on individuals’ personal stories.
“One member of the group asked to
develop a piece of work based on their
own experience. This was a difficult
decision for them, and they needed
reassurance, but it was something they