A Review of Theatre and Learning, Edited by Art Babayants and Heather Fitzsimmons Frey

Emerging from the proceedings of the Twentieth Festival of Original Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2014, Theatre and Learning presents an array of material mapping the “highly complex and potentially powerful relationship” between these two topics (xxii). Historically, education and drama have proved uneasy bedfellows, with accusations of instrumentalism on the one hand and subversion on the other. Movements such as theatre in education (TIE), forum theatre, and the burgeoning genre of theatre for babies have adopted, problematized, and developed these discourses, yet the legitimacy of hybridized modes of performance remains contested. Helen Nicholson’s Theatre, Education and Performance (2011) provided an invaluable historical analysis of evolving principles and practices within theatre education up to the twenty-first century, but this text aims to provoke further questions around the purpose of both theatre and learning by focusing on the experiences of a range of contemporary practitioners. Delivery, practice, and intention are interrogated with honesty and humility, as authors reflect on current debates within pedagogy and theatre. Structurally, the book reflects and preserves the dialogic nature of the original event more closely than a traditional account of proceedings. Provocations sit alongside empirical research; reflective analyses are interwoven with practitioner interviews. This mixture of scholarly modes produces some fascinating dialogues between chapters, such as Helen Nicholson’s examination of “the potency of affective encounters between people and things” (181), which enriches producer Rhona Matheson’s subsequent discussion of ownership, performativity, and engagement in theatre for the very young. The book is divided into three sections, entitled Reflecting, Risking, and Re-Imagining, although two major themes resonate through all contributions: the importance of failure and the weakness of binaries. Numerous authors reflect on their experiences of breakdowns in communication, artistic flops, and struggles with resistance. From truculent rehearsal participants to underprepared undergraduates, the pedagogue–student relationship is wittily scrutinized. Mary Anderson’s powerful account of a community theatre project in Tasmania demonstrates the potential for failure to generate rueful but practical self-reflection as part of a practitioner’s own learning. Similarly, Antje Budde’s wry description of her attempts to deliver a course in Chinese theatre at a Canadian university highlights the unexpected consequences that can ultimately derail any bid to challenge institutional or cultural hegemonies. In several chapters, traditional documentation’s inability to capture the ephemerality of live performance is foregrounded and forces authors to question the traces left behind.