So, just got back from auditioning for '4.48 Psychosis' (which I love! Genuinely! It's awesome! However she only wants two people (preferably men) so yeah... not gonna be in that play am I? )= Shucks). Anyhow, Keith Johnstone! Keith Johnstone is a theatre bloke, who wrote a theatre book (these past two posts are very studenty aren't they? Ooh, Howard would be proud!) called 'Impro', which I read, and is AWESOME!.
Essentially there are four points Johnstone makes (at least, there are four main things that I got from the book. I'm assuming someone cleverer would spot more interesting stuff than myself, but hey ho). They are: 1) School and education are a destructive process. 2) Status games are everywhere. 3) Everyone is scared that they are a little bit insane. 4) Everyone is a little bit insane.
It's a really, really good book, (Can't emphasise this enough!) and Johnstone is now my new favourite theatre practitioner bloke. Basically, I was hooked the moment he started talking about how much he hated school and how the school system was generally bad. He writes about how once he was reading a poem and started crying. He wrote that "If I had cried at school the teacher would have been horrified. I realised my school had been teaching me not to respond". He writes how a young girl was in the garden with her nurse, the nurse pointed out a flower and said how beautiful it was. The girl says that all the flowers were equally beautiful but the nurse insisted that hers was more so. "Actually, it is insane to insist that one flower is more beautiful in a whole garden of flowers, but adults are expected to warp the perceptions of children in this way.
I hated school, and was therefore a horrible student. I didn't do essays, I skived off lessons, I hated quite a few of my teachers and quite a few of my teachers hated me. If I didn't see the point in doing something I didn't do it. I don't blame my teachers, of course I don't. It was my fault I didn't do the work. It was my fault I didn't try harder. I have never revised for an exam in my life, because I never felt the need to. One of the reasons I chose the university that I'm at (as much as I do love it, and it's a very good course, and nearly two hundred miles away from home (always a boon)) is that it had the lowest grade boundaries to get in. "then you should have revised!!" I can imagine many a thought process going. If only I'd've worked harder I'd be cleverer. But I didn't want to. It was all so dull, and I am so average that nobody ever bothered. I was a horrible student, but because my grades were neither good enough or bad enough to warrant special attention I got away with all kinds of hell. And that was my mentality toward education. And here's a bloke who's written a book saying 'I hated it to. And it wasn't my fault, in my opinion, the school is the one that got it wrong'. Right on!!
(I have never used that phrase before, I never intend to use it again.)
Uni is weird because I spent so much of my time in school kicking against convention, that to get here where everything I hated about school doesn't exist, was bizarre. I don't quite know what to do with myself if I'm not rebelling against something, I spent so much of school doing things begrudgingly that it is very much out of my comfort zone to be allowed to be enthusiastic without danger of earning a 'nerd' status. The fact that this book then goes on to say "Let go!", "Have fun!", "Everybody's mental, enjoy it! Use it!" means that I love it. (And am very much of the opinion that this should be compulsory reading for any future teacher! (Not that I am a future teacher! Don't panic! Good god could you imagine? I'd be worse than Mr.Doctor.Robot))
Linking back to the title, I googled Keith Johnstone, as I am a part on the DotCom generation, and discovered that he has a website. He's still wandering the globe giving workshops, 'Great!' thought I. He's in London once in 2010, 'Wow' the voice in my head exclaimed, 'I'm in London in 2010'. He will take all variety of people in his workshops, not just professional actors or really old or really young, in fact, the more variety the better! 'This means' said the voice, 'that I could potentially be in a workshop run by Keith Johnstone! This is awesome'. And it only [Pause! Mock the use of the word 'only'] costs £385. The voice in my head said sad, sad things.
Hence this sad, sad smiley = :'[
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