Role-ing Through My Drama ABQ

While my Drama course was not officially “theatre”, Oscar Wilde had an important insight for educators. Everything people brought to class reflected how much of an invitation for engagement the dramatic arts could be. Throughout the last two weeks, we had eight performance tasks, both cooperative and independent ones. In this course, I gave a lot of myself. Watching and listening to so many other do the same got me thinking about the boundless places drama can take you. It also had me wondering about the role of the teacher in managing the aftermath.

Since people use their real lives and experiences to channel emotions or build characters, I witnessed a lot of “lives” in a short time. One classmate did her monologue about an experience living in the ghetto. I was on the edge of my seat watching her and listening to the story. Her character’s husband reacted to annoying children jumping on the hood of his car, so he dumped water on them. They weren’t just some kids; they were the head of the ghetto’s children. That one act meant the couple couldn’t leave their house for fear of death. They were locked up for days, paralyzed. This was not an imagined threat but one that came with gunshots and a planned attempt at his life.

This turned out to be a recount of real life events that this educator had never shared before. Even though this lovely woman had been teaching in her neighbourhood for years and was well respected, that history didn’t make a difference. Her life and that of her husband hung in the balance. Luckily, someone stepped up to talk down the antagonist, and the threat ended, but not the memory. I don’t know how she put back all the she unleashed in her 5 minute presentation, but it was powerful. She is clearly dealing with a lot, even so many years later. What would a teacher do if that had been a student in their class? How would they ensure there was a safety net for people, such as this, still reeling from what life has thrown at them?

As adults, it’s expected that we take care of ourselves and handle what comes, but what about the children? I witnessed a woman, clearly struggling from the content of her monologue, having used the opportunity to finish a poem she began after the suicide of her friend decades earlier. It was powerful to witness how having the stage gave her permission to try to finish the verses that she was unable to write or even think about so many years before. There she was, enraged, unraveled, speaking in another’s voice but channeling her own. Afterward, there was not one to wrap her in their arms and tell her that she was going to be okay. The class ended. I was almost distraught, but I didn’t know why. What was the instructor supposed to do? This was an adult making choices for an audience of other adults, but what if it was a student?

For one of our tasks, my group was exploring the past and present using a song as a catalyst for our two-person play. Once we agreed to use the song Lost Boys by Ruth B, we explored the potential meanings of the term “lost”. With so much discussion on mental health these days, it was easy to choose that as our theme and begin to investigate changes over time. We titled the scene From Madness to Mental Health using the song lyrics as a central portion of the dialogue. The lost boy on stage right was “mad” having been locked in a padded cell and forgotten. The child on stage left was a boy in modern times, living in his room and struggling to face the day. In the center of our “stage” design, we created a large palm tree decorated with images of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, trying to communicate the whimsy in order for the audience to infer Neverland. I didn’t feel half of the things in rehearsal that came through me during the performance.

I played the “mad” boy. With each revisit of the chorus, “I am a lost boy…” I used different intonations and felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the confined mentally ill character. At one point, I actually felt crazy, and I heard that it translated effectively for the audience. It was only after that I grew concerned. I spiralled slowly into the character but had to come right out when the scene was finished. I didn’t snap out so easily. My heart was still racing, and it was more than the rush of being “on stage”. I went “there” and I was back, but not completely. What happens when students experience this and no one is there to help them “come back”?

The experience in my intermediate Additional Basic Qualifications Drama course was so much about the role of the teacher. From our readings to our performance tasks, I reflected a lot on my various roles. I celebrate that my Building Outside the Blocks (BOB) projects help students reach deep into themselves using their lives and interests as the avenue for skill development, but I had never consciously considered the and then what before. I pride myself on being there for my students when they need me, but do we always know when they do? It made me look back on all the years I have been using this approach in the various classes that I have taught. It made me wonder if I had always been aware enough when students needed my support.

Teachers can create incredible learning opportunities for their students. For many reasons, this course was an incredible learning opportunity for me. While we as educators want to invite students to learn, we also want to make sure that it comes with a reply card to let us know if the insight they gained or the reflections into themselves have left them in the right place from which to move forward. I will certainly be more attuned to those elements, especially when students are more directly referring to themselves through projects like the PS Series or What’s In a Name (W.I.N.). One rarely knows when they have touched a chord or unleashed something that has been ravelled for a reason. If I am going to ask my students to bring their whole selves to their learning, I am going to have to make sure that I am there to help pick up any pieces.