Mark Dyball and Angela Sharpe test the power of performance

Three disparate people find themselves stranded on a deserted platform of an underground station.

Vijay is caught in an eternal moment of remembering a crime he'd sooner forget. Maya is slowly descending into a world of chaos, her memory crumbling away, piece by jigsaw piece. Dino’s fractured psyche is soothed only by the drugs he takes and thoughts of escape. They are ministered to by Silas, the lone kiosk attendant, self-styled healer and purveyor of Kit Kats and crisps. Together on platform 2B these four minds are compelled to confront the devastating nature of Alzheimer's disease, the agony that is post traumatic stress and just what it is that could drive someone to kill at random...

Mind the Gap, developed and produced by Y Touring Theatre Company, explores the implications of memory and brain research. It challenges conventional ways of science learning; its aim is to present the shades of grey in the argument and leave the audience (usually school students) wanting to find out more. The centrepiece is the performance, which consists of a play and subsequent debate.

“We always believed that strong drama could not only affect people emotionally but help them to understand new ideas and think about complex issues,” said Nigel Townsend, Artistic Director of Y-Touring. A key objective for Y-Touring was to ‘stimulate and inform debate about the ethics of brain research’ amongst the students.

People Science & Policy Ltd evaluated the project using pre and post-performance questionnaires for students.

‘Ethical committee’

The students role-played being members of an ethical committee which had to consider a series of questions and come to a decision.

They were supported by the characters from the play who had personal experience of the issues in question. The facilitator would pose each question and ask for an immediate vote, discuss the question in some depth and then take a further vote.

The questions that were posed to the ‘ethical committee’ included:

• If there was a pill that improved memory, who should be allowed to take it?
• If we had a pill that could target and make us forget specific memories, who should be allowed to take it?
• If there was a drug that could cure addiction, who should take it?
• If there was a brain scan that could show doctors if young people have a disorder that made them predisposed to commit acts of violence, who should be scanned?

Stimulating and informing

Nigel is adamant that the performance must work as a dramatic event: ‘If it is not good theatre that grips the audience...all we have is a school hall full of bored teenagers.’

As a piece of drama, Mind the Gap was highly successful in engaging and enthusing both students and teachers alike. The great majority of students (86 per cent) said that they enjoyed the play. Similarly, over two thirds (69 per cent) said they had enjoyed the debate.  Over half of the students (55 per cent) agreed with the statement, I felt included in the debate, and only 16 per cent actively disagreed.

As to informing debate, the students’ responses to the post-performance questionnaire showed that they better understood Alzheimer’s disease, and whether they might develop a brain disorder, after the performance than before it. Over 70 per cent of the students agreed that “The play taught me things that I would not normally learn in class.”

Lasting influence

Y-Touring’s aim is ‘to highlight important, often difficult, current issues and empower its audiences of young people and adults to generate change in themselves, others and society.’  Informing and stimulating debate is a part of this, but does the influence of a performance like Mind the Gap persist?  This is the next question for Nigel Townsend.  ‘Now we know what we always believed, that we make a difference, we really want to know whether that difference lives on in the minds of the students.  Finding that out is our next goal,’ he said.

Mark Dyball is the Director of People Science & Policy Ltd
 
Angela Sharpe is Research Executive at People Science & Policy Ltd