Page 136 - Gonzaga at 60
P. 136
136 Facing page: Creating
worlds in empty space;
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS Darragh O’Connell and
Siobhan Keogh
room conversaion ater a irst night oten includes: ‘And what about X? I’d no idea!’ Oten the
individual on the periphery has found a voice for the very irst ime in his six years in the school.
Or the guy who has escaped noice, or atracted it for all the wrong reasons, achieves recogniion
in his inal year. A cherished recollecion involves a brilliant director of lighing who was beter
known for acts of vandalism around the school.
An educaional purpose, then, but perhaps more tolerated than fully approved?
An only mildly caricature account of the aitude of the earlier years would run thus: a useful
opportunity for those who aren’t the ‘jocks’, but certainly not as valuable as debaing. Awfully
messy, and disrupive of real school life: inevitably, unplanned rehearsals disrupt my class tests.
And for heaven’s sake don’t interfere with rugby – ignoring, as that oten did, the director’s fears
that his leading actor would come back broken from an autumn ‘friendly’.
That caricature is now far in the past, I believe. I’ve writen elsewhere that the school has
become a place that knows how to value and cherish diference in every sphere. It’s the stuf of
Mission Statement and Homily and Captain’s Speech, and the school’s determinaion to pracice
what it preaches taxes the paience of classroom teacher and ime-tabler alike. Increasingly, the
boys know it and acknowledge each other’s talents. The accompanying examples of the Past
who have conidently found a life in theatre and ilm is a mark of the school’s movement towards
placing the creaive and the arisic irmly at the centre of its aciviies.
DRAMA FROM THE ’70s
A look at the list of producions since 1970 hints at purpose, at a philosophy: something relecing
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead, the original Jesuit model; not didacic in aim, but involving the examinaion of issues, spiritual
1987 and secular, through the close experience of acing them out. Obvious examples are Murder
in the Cathedral, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Billy Budd (again), and the staging of the Coventry
Mystery Plays. Even the technically evenful Silas Marner, with its central theme of redempion.
Some choices were evidently intended to be poliically instrucive: Friel’s Freedom of the City and
a Romeo and Juliet set in the context of the then painfully contemporary Northern Troubles, the
warring families sporing either orange or green sashes. The Crucible too its, both as poliical
parable and play of conscience.
It is interesing to recall that the choice of play was pre-eminent, rather than a realisaion
that a certain Sixth Year would be perfect playing a certain part, so let’s do that play. While Sixth
Years were small in number, there was an addiional intent: the close bonding of the year by
collaboraion in a joint venture.
On other occasions, the choice was obviously the whimsy of the director, or the result
of a decision to amuse the audience for once. And other imperaives began to dictate choice:
the ‘right’ of as many as possible of the boys of a Year ‘to be involved’ began to dictate over
the selecion of play for educaive purposes. This led to interesing developments: drating in
batalions of troops in full riot gear; illing a football stadium with singing louts; or adaping
worlds in empty space;
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS Darragh O’Connell and
Siobhan Keogh
room conversaion ater a irst night oten includes: ‘And what about X? I’d no idea!’ Oten the
individual on the periphery has found a voice for the very irst ime in his six years in the school.
Or the guy who has escaped noice, or atracted it for all the wrong reasons, achieves recogniion
in his inal year. A cherished recollecion involves a brilliant director of lighing who was beter
known for acts of vandalism around the school.
An educaional purpose, then, but perhaps more tolerated than fully approved?
An only mildly caricature account of the aitude of the earlier years would run thus: a useful
opportunity for those who aren’t the ‘jocks’, but certainly not as valuable as debaing. Awfully
messy, and disrupive of real school life: inevitably, unplanned rehearsals disrupt my class tests.
And for heaven’s sake don’t interfere with rugby – ignoring, as that oten did, the director’s fears
that his leading actor would come back broken from an autumn ‘friendly’.
That caricature is now far in the past, I believe. I’ve writen elsewhere that the school has
become a place that knows how to value and cherish diference in every sphere. It’s the stuf of
Mission Statement and Homily and Captain’s Speech, and the school’s determinaion to pracice
what it preaches taxes the paience of classroom teacher and ime-tabler alike. Increasingly, the
boys know it and acknowledge each other’s talents. The accompanying examples of the Past
who have conidently found a life in theatre and ilm is a mark of the school’s movement towards
placing the creaive and the arisic irmly at the centre of its aciviies.
DRAMA FROM THE ’70s
A look at the list of producions since 1970 hints at purpose, at a philosophy: something relecing
Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead, the original Jesuit model; not didacic in aim, but involving the examinaion of issues, spiritual
1987 and secular, through the close experience of acing them out. Obvious examples are Murder
in the Cathedral, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Billy Budd (again), and the staging of the Coventry
Mystery Plays. Even the technically evenful Silas Marner, with its central theme of redempion.
Some choices were evidently intended to be poliically instrucive: Friel’s Freedom of the City and
a Romeo and Juliet set in the context of the then painfully contemporary Northern Troubles, the
warring families sporing either orange or green sashes. The Crucible too its, both as poliical
parable and play of conscience.
It is interesing to recall that the choice of play was pre-eminent, rather than a realisaion
that a certain Sixth Year would be perfect playing a certain part, so let’s do that play. While Sixth
Years were small in number, there was an addiional intent: the close bonding of the year by
collaboraion in a joint venture.
On other occasions, the choice was obviously the whimsy of the director, or the result
of a decision to amuse the audience for once. And other imperaives began to dictate choice:
the ‘right’ of as many as possible of the boys of a Year ‘to be involved’ began to dictate over
the selecion of play for educaive purposes. This led to interesing developments: drating in
batalions of troops in full riot gear; illing a football stadium with singing louts; or adaping
