The training process that developed over time requires that
group members devote a minimum of fifteen hours to intensive
workshops and preliminary rehersals which involved discussions of
assigned readings and videotapes, and the sharing of newsppaer and
magazine clippings brought in by group members. At this stange in
the work, the education coordinator focuses the group work on a
variety of topical areas, e.g. Recognizing, resisting, and
surviving acquaintance rape; rape and the policitics of race,
class, and gender; how to help a survivor; and acquaintance rape
and alcohol. The education coordinator also invites S.U.'s Peer
Sexuality educators to facilitate workshops on topics such as
sexual decision-making and homophobia, biphobia, and heterosexism.
The readings, discussions, and workships enable group members to
begin to form a conceptual and informational foundation for the
work that is to come.
Once the foundation is set such that all group members,
actors and directors alike, are able to disucss the issues with a
combined sense of objective knowledge, personal relevance, and a
broader socio-political awarenss, the education coordinator makes
room for tghe director(s) to devise role-playing and
improvisational exercises. Some of these exercises-- e.g. "blind
leads," "machine," and Spolin (1963) games-- are deigned to help
group members to interact with each other in a spirit of trust,
mutuality, and spontaneity.
The vast majority of the exercises we use take the form of
elaborate role-plays designed to enable the performers and the
director(s) to develop scenes that naturally or believably
communicate the most salient points of targeted issues. If, for
example, we are working toward an upcoming performance around the
issue of acquintance rape and alcohol, group members (coordinator,
cirector, and actors) work together to outline the key points such
a scene should ideally communicate, often referring back to
articles previously read or videotapes previously discussed. Group
members are then led to create characters that embody the
personalities most likely to be affected by the issues at hand.
Next, an apprpriate setting is devised. And finally, two to four
actors volunteer to role play, and in doing so commit to the
agreed upon characters, setting, and issues. The actors then
interact with each other until a plausible scenario begins to take
form.
The director's responsibility at this stage is to coach the
actors, the goal being to help the actors to stay true to their
character' actions and emotions, and to the issues at stake,
without imposing his or her own solutions. At times the actors are
encouranged to continue the scene relatively non-stop while the
director sidecoaches or makes suggestions at opportune times. At
other times, especially if the momentum of the scene is faltering
or if it becomes clear that the actors ahve lost focus or are
retreating away from difficult emotions or actions, the director
will stop the scene to generate a discussion. Such discussions are
time for self-reflection and group problem-solving, so group
members who have been observing are invited to offer help. Once
new decisions ahve been made, and new directions have been found,
the actors try again. And again. Until the role play has become a
coherent, communicating scene, genuine enough to hit close to home
and provocate enough to generate questions.
For all e5m scenes, we have agreed to avoid blatant
didacticism, preaching, and sterotyping. There are no unwarranted
plugs or advertisements for R.A.P.E. Center services, no
monologues expounding on the evils of premarital sex and heaving
drinking, no sweet virginal victims, and no dark strangers
stalking young co-eds at the local beer joint.
One of our most powerful scenes involves a young woman
(RACHEL) who is left alone with a new date (DON) by the two
friends with whom they were double dating. The two friends have
been drinking and are clearly "involved," so involved with each
other and their own "needs" that not once do they stop to consider
the dangerous situation they have unwittingly helped to
perpetrate, or to notice just how inappropriate DON's behavior has
become.
Left alone, DON makes himself comfortable and RACHEL becomes
uncomfortable. She hints that he should leave, but her polite
manner is unconvincing, especially to a guy who best bud has just
encouraged him to "go for it." RACHEL likes DON and doesn't want
to hurt his feelings. He senses her ambivalence, but misreads it
as feigned coyness or the no-means-yes game.
RACHEL and DON kiss, and despite the fact that kissing is as
far as RACHEL wants things to go, DON manipulates her into a
vulnerable position on the floor. The scenes ends with RACHEL's
chilling scream of "No!," DON shouting at RACHEL to "Shut up and
enjoy it," and the two actors' bodies frozen into a position of
sexual force.
As soon as a scene is close to being performance-ready, it is
presented to the entire group. After the presentation, group
members function as audience members and enter into dialogue with
the performers and the education coordinator. The education
coordinator functions as the dialogue facilitator, a "talk-show"
host, in a sense, who introduces the characters to the audience,
helps to field questions and comments, mediates when necessary,
and looks for opportunieies to explicate the key facts, figures,
and underlying issues at stake in the scene and in the dialogue
which follows.
During the rehersal of audience interaction, some group
members ask relatively safe or expectable questions (e.g. "Don,
what did you think Rachel meant when she said no?" or "Rachel,
what are you going to do now? Are you going to report it?") while
other group members ask more provocative questions (e.g. "Rachel,
if you didn't want sex, why did you let Don kiss you?"). With this
type of role-playing, a healthy amount of pressure is placed on
the performers to know their characters and their scenarios well
enough to answer with consistency any and all questions, to know
their characters well enough to know in advance how to refuse to
answer a question, and to allow their characters to learn from
audience members who present resonably strong arugments.
Index | InteractiveTheatre.org | Proceed to The Interactive Theatre Forum