ABSTRACT
I have compiled this list through consultation with the actors of the research project in Ohio who have played the games almost every week for the last two years. Some of the tips are direct quotes from the book and some are direct quotes from the actors. All are chosen as quick, key reminders of how to play with the children, giving you confidence in what can sometimes feel like an impossible task.
To be present in the moment is one of the all time best notes for an actor and essential when playing these games with children.
Your ultimate aim no matter where the children are on the spectrum is for them to experience what a game feels like.
Learn the child’s name as soon as you meet them and always use it.
Use concise language to instruct the children. Choose a few words rather than long sentences.
Never give up on the child’s ability to play.
The opening games of ‘Heartbeat hellos’ and ‘Throwing the face’ are as essential for the actors as they are for the children.
Shakespeare’s plays are packed with moments of transcendence and these are embodied within the games as ‘Points of Ecstasy’, moments where effort culminates in achievement and it’s clear that the game has been accomplished. The expression POE is found throughout the book and serves as a reminder that the games must be pleasurable; the children’s communicative progress is dependent on sharing a sense of playfulness with the adult.
Your role as prompter is key, you are offering the child the stimulus to speak.
Connect yourself to the child’s time frame rather than expecting them to meet yours. ‘Take your time’ is a phrase worth repeating more than almost any other: a beautiful, powerful phrase. Allow the children to feel that you know they understand you and that you understand they are doing their best to achieve the physical task.
Take your time especially with children who struggle with cognition, and adapt each game to suit their needs. Every time the child makes a physical transformation, no matter how much support they have received from you in order to make it, is another step toward their communicative progress.
Ensure that you are working with the child at their own pace and not missing out any of the necessary steps in order to get a final result; playing each phase of the game itself is result enough.
The trying is the intervention.
The trance games directly challenge the physical ‘stiffness’ often associated with autism inviting a flow of movement from one person to the next as well as challenging the children’s spatial awareness and encouraging longer periods of concentrated eye focus.
It’s important that the children feel they are sharing the games with you and that you are truly enjoying yourself. The beneficial side of the work is embedded deep in the games and begins to take root through a shared pleasurable experience between actor and child.
Make physical contact with the children with confidence.
Playing the games should feel as if time stops and that the child has a boundless opportunity to explore and embody sensations and feeling, which may otherwise be overlooked.
The children’s communicative progress is on-going and long term, continuing for months and years. The balance between pushing them to achieve communicative breakthroughs and allowing them to feel safe is always in flux. Keep your priority on building their trust and sense of safety, without that they will never make any self-discoveries. As the drama sessions become part of their weekly life they usually find the games easier to play even though the games themselves may become more complex – this has proved true with every group of children I have worked with. Catching the face (photo © Melissa Lee) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315747477/65d8ca24-1714-466c-88bf-3f5d79f113b5/content/pho28_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Throwing the face (photo © Melissa Lee) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315747477/65d8ca24-1714-466c-88bf-3f5d79f113b5/content/pho29_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
At the heart of the work you are pinpointing what the child can’t do, and doing it with them until they can.
If the child has issues with time introduce a large clock and allow exactly two minutes for the duration of a game. It works wonders for any game.
The child’s potential for personal change is contained within the humour and playfulness with which you demonstrate and share the game.
Use the introduction method from ‘Playing a part’ (p. 73) to introduce any character and any game.
Your fundamental aim is to use Shakespeare as a means of waking the children up to their own lives; the plays ask more questions than they give answers and at best the work empowers the children to do the same, taking enquiring steps into unknown personal territory which they would otherwise not have the opportunity to do.
It’s useful to think of the act of ‘playing’ as ‘changing’: to play is to change.
When demonstrating and playing with the children experiment with turning the volume of your voice down in relation to your emotions and encourage the children to do the same – the more intense the emotion the quieter your voice.
‘Failure’ is opportunity. New games only emerge because something doesn’t work and you have the curiosity to try another strategy.
The games are constantly evolving, they belong to the children who play them.
Do ensure that an enthusiastic suggestion from a child is greeted with equal enthusiasm from yourself and that you always try out their ideas. These games would not exist in their current form if that had not been the case.
