Hello, everyone!
Ever heard of Augusto Boal, or forum theatre? (Things we love: Wikipedia.) At Sunday's rehearsal, we started to actively play a little more with this form, trying to work out situations of conflict between workers and students or in cafeterias at Northwestern. During the rehearsal, in an attempt to explore the whole truth of the people we are talking about - that is, particularly NU students and campus workers - we brainstormed stereotypes and shortcomings of both groups. Then, we used forum theatre to help us dig through complicated interactions where fault gets sticky.
One of our cast members told a story about feeling uncomfortable when a young campus worker wrote his phone number on a receipt, and then called her out for not calling him, in front of lots of other students. What was she supposed to say? What position was the worker in? Is this a potential argument AGAINST worker-student interaction (or is that what the administration would say)?
And so we played the scene out, just the way it happened, and scrutinized the actions of worker, student and passerby. We also asked for "thoughts out loud" from the characters - what might they have been thinking in that moment, helping us to understand their actions? And then we started, in forum theatre style, to replace characters, especially the student, and trying different actions to get her out of or to dissolve the situation.
This led to conversations of politeness, feeling indebted, "being on the same side," sexual harassment, talking back, questions of NU cafeterias as safety bubbles, labels of harmlessness, and thinking of people as people - is that possible in a worker-student relationship? Why? Why not?
Tell us your thoughts!
Oh, and come to our PARTY.
Love,
Alyssa, APP dir.
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