Week 13: TIE (Storms)

Forum Theatre Section

We started off by exploring the idea of Adam, the friend of John that we have seen in the background throughout the piece, having a breakdown (maybe even suicide) out of the blue so that we can accentuate the fact that we can all be a friend and you may not realise that someone has a mental health problem as they may cover it up with humor. We thought that at some point we could have a video of Sue, the CEO of SToRMs, talking about her own experiences with not noticing the signs of a mental health problem in her son but we then realised that it might be too horrific for her to recall the whole story.

After our full run-through, we decided that we wanted to focus on the Forum Theatre addition to the piece. A few weeks ago, we made a short scene that included John and his friends when they start drinking in the build up to the car scene, so like a flashback of when John started drinking. We came up with some suggestions that we think we may be told when we go out into the audience:

• Ask him whether he's alright
• Have a drink with him so that he's not alone
• Ask him why he wants to get drunk

We decided to imagine we had taken some suggestions from the audience and we were going to replay the scene multiple times so that the audience could have control over one of the friends and see whether they could help John express his feelings. In the first go of the scene, we said that an audience member would put forward the idea of a friend asking him whether he's alright and why is he drinking so much. We had the rest of the group answer for John by shouting "Well, it's Friday night." so we emphasised that maybe asking how he feels in a group and whilst the rest of your friends are around isn't the best idea. And so we said that when we are helping the audience that could be one of our suggestions to them that might spark some more ideas. And so we applied that to the scene and added in Adam holding back John from the group and then proceeding to ask him whats wrong.

The conversation that we came up with was:

A:Why are you drinking so much?

J: I don't know cos I'm pissed off, I don't know I just want to stop thinking for a bit

A: Pissed off at what?

J: Just...I don't know I've got a lot going on at the minute

A: You do seem really stressed

J: I am being stressed

A: Yeah being stressed can make you angry

J: I'm literally angry all the time: at mum, at school for putting all this shit on me, at dad for shouting at me, at holly for not getting it.

A: Yeah it sounds pretty tough mate

J: Yeah tough

A: Look I'll keep an eye on you tonight, yeah, make sure that you get home alright.

In previous years, we have worked with CAMHS on the Healthy Minds Launch and we found out that a good way to help someone open up to you was by relaying their feelings back to them and stating that it is clear you know they are upset and so we added that in when Adam changes his tactics and it eventually helps John explain how he's feeling.

We did think that we could also add in an extra bit of audience participation if we stopped after the first question so that we can allow the audience to have control of both sides of the conversation and know how it feels to try and communicate and also be a good friend. We wanted them to tell us what they thought John would say and we thought that they could say:

• Why do you care?
• Just want a good night
• I'm bored what else is there to do?

We then thought of the conversation that might come after and we thought that it may go like:

A: Why are you drinking so much?

J: I don't know

A: Come on , mate just tell me

J: (Lists some of the options given by the audience)

A: It's not like you mate

J: I've got a lot going on

We would then fast forward to the drunk scene with Holly but Adam stays with him whilst the rest of the group leave when Holly arrives. We thought that this could show the impact that having a friend in that situation could have upon John. Adam would stop John from smoking and getting on the car as the designated sober friend that is looking out for John. Adam sees the argument with Holly building and so removes John from the situation in a comedic way so that if reflects how it could happen in real life.

Moving the piece onward, we thought that we could do some small group work with the audience to unpick what Adam did for John. We would try enable them to explain the realistic situation. For example, there was no way that Adam was going to stop John from drinking but not everybody in the group has to drink so that one person can look out for him. Adam listened to what his friend had to say and identified how he was feeling and helped him understand that it was okay to talk about it. We could do small role plays and try to get them to do the scene themselves and see whether they could get John to express his feelings without asking him questions and then we could ask follow up questions like "how hard was that to talk to someone?" This would allow the audience to be put in the conversation still in a safe environment so that if the situation occurs in real life, they will know what to do.