ABSTRACT
Morning to the end of the twentieth century, a recurring characteristic of pre-millenium tension can be identified as a growing distrust in the single art form. Whether this hunger to mix and match aesthetic traditions is merely a fashionable, passing exercise or the beginning of new hybrids which will achieve longevity, is perhaps too early to say. But as in music where bhangra and rock, reggae and cajun, classical and pop meet and marry, so too drama and theatre traditions are being fused with photography, video, music and sculpture to knock accepted models of working into a back room. In the community arts field too, these processes are evident. Computer technology in particular is helping facilitators achieve in new ways, the now well-established aim of realising the creative potential of groups of non-artists, through forms and structures which are comparable in impact with those of established artists. So too for the drama facilitator, the challenge is there: to work with artists from other disciplines and conspire with them to create new forms which will best reflect the shifting Zeitgeist. Because theatre is one of our oldest and most powerful art forms and because our ancient plays still pack a punch, does not mean we are relieved of the obligation to invent new formal structures which are appropriate for a changing society. The responsibility, and the necessity to do so, however, can only be informed productively by awareness of what current and recent generations of practitioners have themselves devised. Indeed, these earlier paradigms will themselves contain the future, albeit they have to be turned upside down first. So if theatre is a house of games, it will need to be ransacked and refurbished periodically, but perhaps not at the expense of the foundations.
