 Action/Adventure: November 09, 2010 Issue [#4065] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Inaction in action Edited by: THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  
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Inaction in action
Sometimes, lack of action is more powerful than action.
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I was teaching 'Drama' as visiting faculty in a school, to a group of twelve year olds. We had weekly hour-long sessions over a couple of months. My colleague accompanied me, to help out. There were forty children in each batch, and we had four batches a day, through eight Fridays (that is, a hundred and sixty kids!) Toward the end of the program, after covering basics like movement, dialogue and so on, I wanted the students to understand the importance of individual interpretation in Drama. Thus, I divided each batch of forty into five groups of eight students, and gave them the same script. They had to pick a director from among themselves, rehearse over the week, and present their interpretation of the script to the class. At the end of the hour, we discussed how similar or different each presentation was, and how the nuances varied with interpretation.
During the presentations, my colleague and I sat silent, watching and making mental notes of how each group had worked on the script. Except - suddenly during the last presentation in the last batch. To my surprise, my colleague stood up abruptly, and started telling the group what to do. 'Sit here ... say your line ... louder ..." she instructed. After a couple of minutes, she resumed her seat next to me, with a smug grin on her face.
Not wanting to disrupt the class, I continued as usual. After the bell had gone and the kids had filed out of the room, I turned to her. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "You'd allowed every other batch to interpret the script. Why did you suddenly intervene?"
"I was making you look good," she replied. "You didn't notice, the Principal was watching quietly through the window. I guess she didn't want to disturb us. I wanted to show her we were teaching the kids something, not just sitting there."
So - my colleague thought that by 'taking action', she was making me look good. I'm sure that wasn't the case, the Principal would've understood that we were 'just sitting there' for a reason. Our lack of apparent action allowed the students to take the action, to learn something. My colleague's interruptions left the last group confused about the idea of individual interpretation, they thought they had done something 'wrong' and had to be corrected.
It is hard, sometimes, NOT to act. To 'just sit there'. Truth be told, I itched, too, to intervene during a couple of the presentations, and I had to hold myself back. But at that point, lack of action is what was required to get the learning across.
Yesterday, Dad and I were surfing channels on TV and came across the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still_(2008_film) An alien comes to Earth to save the planet from humankind. Other species are to be saved, humankind is considered beyond redemption and has to be destroyed. The alien civilisations have watched humans for decades, hoping for an increase in environmental and social awareness, and have finally decided that the continuation of the human species is detrimental to the Earth.
What struck me as I watched the movie was - the haste with which the characters took 'action'. Especially the military bigwigs, whose first reaction was to send out men with guns - in tanks, in helicopters, to shoot at whatever they didn't understand.
What finally saved the Earth was a quiet conversation the alien had with a scientist; and the vibes the alien picked up from a stepmother and her stepson hugging each other at boy's father's grave. It was not action that won, but reasoning and emotion. Action, in fact, served to further jeopardise humankind's chance for survival, it only reinforced the alien view of human behaviour.
In the seventh Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling tells of a powerful wand which, legend has it, makes the owner invincible. Harry knows that his mortal enemy, Voldemort, is after the wand, but chooses to let him take it. He doesn't try to beat him to it, though he has realised, before Voldemort has, where it is located. Rowling writes: "The enormity of his decision not to race Voldemort to the wand still scared Harry. He could not remember, ever before, choosing not to act. He was full of doubts ..."
Yes, inaction is scary. Scarier that action, sometimes, because it means placing a deeper trust in your own judgement and in the ability of someone else to act in a way that furthers your interests. It means taking time out to think and decide the best course of action. It means waiting, which is very hard to do.
Which is why stories in which a character could have acted but wins through inaction are so powerful. They touch a deeper chord within us - of finding meaning, of finding something intellectual, emotional and spiritual, rather than just doing something.
Thanks for listening!
- Sonali
PS - A big thank you to Doug Rainbow  , for making a more detailed analysis of inaction.
Here's the link to the piece:-
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PPS - Harry Potter fans know that the decision about the wand was the right one after all, and that Harry wins the final battle against Voldemort!
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Thanks for the feedback to "Action/Adventure Newsletter (December 2, 2009)"
NickiD89 
What an interesting topic! I've never attempted a one-sided conversation, but I'm intrigued and want to give it a try. I'm not a playwright, but I'm imagining a story where the POV is in the room when a secondary character gets an important phone call... I see how this technique can build suspense into a scene. Thanks!!
Acme
ooh, fun newsletter, Sonali--can't wait to play around with one-sided conversations. Thanks heaps for highlighting one of my PWW entries 
cosmicgypsy
Very helpful information. I'm currently trying to write some conversations in my story, some of which I'd like to have one sided. Lots to think about.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone, great to hear from you!
- Sonali
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