Seedbeds of Liberation
“Actors are athletes of the heart.” Antonin Artaud
On a Valentines’ Day in 1997, my Playback theatre troupe sent an open invitation to all Salt Spring residents to participate in a sharing of personal love stories. We rented a small art gallery and since it was a horribly wet and windy night we expected just a few people. At 7 pm the place was packed full and we decided to squeeze everyone in at the expense of floor space for the actors. We acted out several exciting, juicy love stories from the audience and then I was ready to go home to my two teenagers. Just as we thought no one was going to volunteer a final story, a sad looking fellow got up from the audience and sat in the tellers’ chair. Robert, our flamboyant gay director, sat beside him and in his usual energized fashion and began asking the fellow questions, e.g.”What is your name?” Silence prevailed and the fellow stared down at the floor. Then Robert said “Oh, so what story would you like to tell us tonight?” The fellow with no name remained silent. Anxiety kicked in and I doubted that including random people in the show was a good idea. Robert next asked “Of all the actors here, who would best play you in this story?” The fellow looked up and gazed at all 6 of us actors. This is an important choice because the tellers’ actor begins, leads and ends the scene. After an eternity, the fellow pointed at me. There were two men in our troupe and yet he picked me for some reason. I took some deep breaths and decided to drop my impatience. I recalled Marshall Rosenberg’s advice: “If it isn’t play, don’t do it.” I began to practise presence; listening not for words but emotion, with my whole body. Gradually, Robert coaxed the fellow to answer some yes and no questions like “Were you at home?” ‘Yes…..” he whispered. “Do you live alone?” “Yes……” he muttered. “Do you have a sweetheart?” “Kind of……..” he mumbled. “How does your story end?” “She knocks on my door and we go out to the movies……” he managed to gasp. Robert then turned to the actors and proclaimed “Thanks for this amazing story. Lets’ watch “The Date!”
We actors left the stage and I felt baffled as to how to begin and carry off the scene, when I had no real concrete plot to follow. I was procrastinating in the shadows, when I spied a broom. Without thinking, I tiptoed over, got it and walked on stage, sweeping the floor. I continued to sweep, sweep and sweep some more as I waited and listened for footsteps at my door. I mimed checking my hair in the mirror, brushing my teeth, in between picking up the broom and sweeping. Finally, the knock comes. I hesitate to open the door and pretend not to hear it. Another knock and another. Slowly I opened the door to see my date. After a long silence, I leave my tiny apartment, turning to smile at the audience as I exit. Applause erupted. Robert turned to the teller and asked him how he was feeling after seeing the story played back to him. The fellow looked up at me, smiled and asked: “How did you know that when I am feeling stressed, all I can do is sweep the floor?” Our eyes met and my heart melted. I felt honored to be in his shoes for a few minutes. Somehow, my instincts or my mirror neurons were resonating with his tried and true strategy of sweeping, to meet his need for self-soothing. The simple community care that we provided him that night was, in my view, Wise Play, an act of embodied social justice.
” Theater is the art of looking at ourselves.” Augusto Boal
