Theatre is drama made plastic.
Drama is story made plastic.
Story is an experience made plastic.

The foundations of drama and theatre lie therefore in experience, which is impression emerging from perception and/or fantasy. This impression is formed into story by the storyteller, so he can pass it on, to make it possible for others to live through his I-feeling. So story derives from the need to share, to build relationships, and to communicate: storytelling is interaction.

A story achieves its aim when the listener can imagine himself in it, that is if the storyteller offers the listener space: he invites him in. We cannot identify with a story which treats us as strangers, which doesn’t invite us in, which leaves us no room. We cannot identify with it, it’s mundane: we are bored. We pay rapt attention to familiar stories because something similar has happened to us, or we can imagine that it might; because they affect us, touch us: we are excited. To captivate audiences the storyteller/writer must create a story which reckons with their life experience, which brings its own experience closer to their history: which creates shared stories.

Characters in drama are persons or personified things that are familiar to the reader or become familiar in the course of the reading, and thereby the reader comes into contact with them, understands, shares their feelings, intentions, and the consequences of their actions. Drama thus provokes interest, even empathy from the reader: she lives with the characters.

Theatre adds to all this the three-dimensional manifestation of a story’s characters. The viewer meets with flesh-and-blood people who share the drama with her in real time, transforming the story into tangible interaction, so that the original experience of the storyteller/writer becomes a common experience: the theatre creates community.

While good stories involve a kind of stance-taking – the author’s opinion on his experiences – good drama never takes a stance, but rather leaves the conclusion to the audience. The essence of drama is to exhibit different perspectives, to oppose characters subscribing to divergent opinions or understandings of the world; to represent, as vividly as possible, reality – man living in a community.

Pedagogy’s subject is the individual living in a community, that is, a community made up of individuals. For pedagogy the concepts of the individual and the community follow from each other: the individual torn from his community cannot be educated, nor can a community be developed when individual interests are excluded.

When pedagogy uses drama as its instrument, it seeks a story which can make plastic the tensions between a community and the individual, which makes it possible to live through and understand the relationships by which distinct intentions and interests mutually reinforce or undo each other: it analyses model situations.

Theatre in the classical sense is the metaphorical compression of life. Theatre is credible when we see living people in plausible situations drawn from reality, in real time, in a space which is stylised but shared with the viewer. If the actors are not present, or if we see previously recorded scenes; if the performed, displayed situations and events are not credible, and thus bear no relation to the viewer’s reality; if the event and its perception occur in two separate spaces, that is there’s no opportunity for direct connection – then we are talking not of theatre but of something else.

When pedagogy makes use of theatre’s toolkit, it places individuals forming the object of teaching directly into the drama’s system of relations, where they act directly on the story and other characters, but the story and the other characters also act on them: they live through model situations.

The aim of theatrical pedagogy is not the interpretation and acceptance of drama or theatre’s aesthetic values. Theatrical pedagogy’s most important element is never to be found in drama or theatre, but outside of it, under the process of understanding’s control: theatrical pedagogy is the science of reflection.

Pedagogy utilising the resources of drama and theatre differs in its conditions most from original media in that during the pedagogical process the traditionally passive recipient/spectator role and the intrinsically active presenter/performer roles are intertwined, are built on each other. Thus the pedagogical act doesn’t offer participants a purely contemplative perspective. Theatrical pedagogy is therefore not equivalent to theatre, but also not to pedagogy, since the traditional pedagogical framework likewise differentiates the active teacher and passive student roles. In the most widespread school environment, teachers present – actors on the stage – while the student, like the viewer, listens; and ideally reflects.

Theatrical pedagogy revolutionises both domains at once: art and education. The innovation’s essence resides in offering the possibility of participation, and thereby for sharing responsibility. The appearance of theatrical pedagogy can be linked to the newest chapter of humanity’s history, the formation of the idea of participatory democracy; it derives from it. The new political or civic premise: involving individuals in the most diverse and thorough ways possible in societal, communal matters. Participatory democracy differs from traditional representative democracy in that citizens have free choice not only in the allocation of power in the community, but also in all concrete cases pertaining to the local, regional, and higher organisational levels. They can proclaim opinions, step forward with suggestions, even reach decision-making positions.

The need for individual participation in shaping common affairs (the res publica) is directly related to the spread of the internet, which lays the foundations for extensive social networks and makes possible the immediate sharing of and direct access to information, transparent political communication, science that processes increasingly rich data, a picture of human and communal modernity, and the enlightenment ideal.

The downsides of the undoubtedly enormous successes are well-known. Although the human toolkit for advocacy has developed in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, the human psyche itself and its social environment have not been able to keep up with this change. In different cultures and societies the individual’s ability to form a community diverges considerably. There are democratic states whose citizens are not aware at all of their rights and responsibilities. The integration of immigrants causes serious problems even for the maturest democratic societies. In many European countries, it’s difficult to obtain potential tools for community development, and when successfully acquired their application poses an obstacle. We do not have participatory democracy, but even if we did we could not use it.

Theatrical pedagogy is a method based formally on different exercises but the same mission: to provide participants in education with as many opportunities as possible for participation. Theatrical pedagogy processes the various social and cultural tensions: it dramatises the minority-majority break lines. Theatre pedagogy is mental training for all ages: especially recommended for those in crisis situations.

Participants involved in a theatre-pedagogical process are not surprised that now-iconic events of history in fact resulted from the imagination and determination of ordinary people like themselves. Nor are they astounded to find that, in order to reach their goals, they must think together with others, and occasionally compete. They can also imagine that when others win they are not worth less.

The European Union’s re-evaluation is currently underway in Europe. The most pressing question is how citizens of different states can find common ground with each other. The creation of a genuinely common European identity is now within reach, but so is the escalation of tensions between nations and ethnicities.

The utility of theatrical pedagogy has been certified with quantitative and qualitative methods by the international DICE research project. The question is whether we understand the results’ significance. There is in existence a method which could enable Europe’s youth to look at the current state of public affairs with fresh eyes and, building on the practices of the existing political system, to create a new kind of cooperation network on the continent. Europe stands before an experiment with a new model: never before has it been possible to lastingly coordinate such distinct interests and sustainably operate such a diverse political alliance.

Theatrical pedagogy is the existing practice of democracy. In Hungary since the fall of Communism several independent organisations have practiced activities of this kind. Yet national educational and cultural policy remains unwilling to elevate into an official framework, and support on a normative basis, the democratic development of society. 

It’s worth examining the state of Hungary’s democratic political culture. What do Hungarian citizens think of the individual’s communal responsibility, of solidarity, of tolerance, or even of the role of politics in everyday life? How far has the integration of the Roma community come? How tolerant are Hungarians of members of the LGBT community? How inquiring are they about innovative perspectives and practises? How much do they feel themselves to be European citizens; are they familiar with continental interests and values? Do they even speak languages other than their own?

Árpád Schilling