How can a company that works so hard and produce amazing results have a weakness in their practice I hear you ask!?
Well, I wouldn’t say they have any weaknesses at all but referencing back to what I said earlier with, no workshop will ever be perfect, means there is always room for improvement in all areas of applied theatre. ‘imagine if’ have done incredible work in prisons, visiting over 26 around the UK and US and working with over 4000 prisoners in and outside the system. However, I do have a question with reference to a quote from ‘The Ethics of Applied Theatre’ on page 76 which states, “Might Applied Theatre be motivated by some superior urge to have community members conform to a mainstream standard, or for them to behave according to preordained policy?” My question for you to answer is are ‘imagine if’ working with the prisoners for the benefit of them and to help improve these convicts as people. Or are they simply providing a service that we hope will change the outcome of these prisoners when they leave and have to return to mainstream standards at the click of a switch because society says so. This leads our ethical consideration in two totally different directions and makes us re-consider if these criminals signed up voluntarily or were told to do the practice in an attempt to bring them back to these ‘standards’
