Cornerstone, Community Based Theatre, Anna Deavere Smith and Naomi Wallace: Some Connections

As we move forward with the class and begin to practice applying some of the techniques we've been examining, I thought it would be good to draw some connections between the various threads about which we've been reading and talking. In an effort to be as transparent as possible about my goals as a teacher, I should say that my interest in including all of these various artists was that they have a particular interest in what some people call "engaged" artistic practices and scholarship. I am trying to find ways that these practices can be more actively included in the training of young actors, specifically, whose work is so important but is often dismissed and overlooked as a possible avenue for public intellectual engagement (in my opinion, the intellectual part of acting is often downplayed because we are so closely associated with our emotions and our bodies; but, as much recent research and scholarship shows, the mind is thoroughly embodied and emotional).

We began by making a transition from the discussion of solo performance to talking about community based theatre, and I brought up a quote by Ron Short, a member of Roadside Theatre who was cited in the chapter we read from the book Performing Communities. He points out that if you have historically been part of a group on the fringes of American society,

...you don't have any of that political control, that economic control, even the control of your own image. Somebody else is controlling and telling you who you are. Then the only thing you have is your own story. That's about the only thing that you have. It comes down to how you use that in a public way. That's essential to me. Thater is the last public forum for common people. ... That process of dialog with the audience enters into the collective consciousness of that community and helps shape that community. As it uses the collective knowledge, it gets built together. (30)

This made me realize how much of a gift it will be if people choose to share their stories with us, and how important it is for us to continue a dialogue with them as we progress. The work we are doing here is about conversation, ideally, rather than about control.

Continuing on that theme, we were really very fortunate to have a visit from Patty Payette, a former member of Cornerstone Theater Company who now works on our campus. We discussed the chapter in the same book on Cornerstone's work, and focused on the importance of mutual respect, and sharing our skills as theatre artists with the larger community in which we live. The chapter we read emphasized the importance of not entering into a project with the goal of changing a specific thing about someone or a community, and this brought up the risk of looking for a definite outcome or attempting to "help" in a sort of condescending, disengaged way. So we also talked about the importance of process and prioritizing what we can all learn from each other, as opposed to just paying attention to a final, marketable product. And as Ron Short pointed out, it is this kind of conversation that creates and builds our communities anew.

As tools for approaching this kind of work, we began to look at resources offered by different artists and writers whose work is based on the art of listening: the late, great Studs Terkel (may he rest in peace), whose website includes some very useful advice about conducting oral history interviews, the Storycorps project, whose book Listening is an Act of Love also offers excellent resources for conducting rich conversations, and Anna Deavere Smith, whose work of listening and embodiment takes careful research a step further by actually allowing actors to try on another person's identity.

One definition of community based art is that it is made "in, from, and for" specific communities, which lead to a long and ongoing discussion of how one defines community. I have read critiques of Deavere Smith's work, for example, that suggest it is not technically community based because it focuses a great deal on her own virtuosity as a performer. I, myself, believe that her work is exemplary because she is a highly skilled performer with enormous presence who actually makes an effort to open her power up and share it by beginning conversations about what American communities are or can be. But also, anyone who has tried to do the kind of work she does will probably find that it is a selfless process that requires an intense and respectful focus on the specific details of the lives of other people.

I also appreciate the focus Deavere Smith's work gives both to empathy and difference. In her introduction to Fires in the Mirror, she writes, "Character lives in the obvious gap between the real person and my attempt to seem like them. I try to close the gap between us, but I applaud the gap between us. I am willing to display my own unlikeness" (xxxvii-xxxviii). Training actors for professional careers is so frequently internally focused and intent on emphasizing an actor's ability to be "natural," and actors in mainstream theatre, television and film are so often limited to roles "like them" into which they can conveniently and believably be cast, the value of listening, observing and behaving differently doesn't get enough time or attention.

Finally, we begin work this week on the characters that form the basis of our research this semester, from the plays of Naomi Wallace. It seems to me that Wallace fits very well in the context of this other work, because as Brendan Pelsue points out in his portrait of her in the schedule for the upcoming Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, "Wallace's work is grounded in the idea that human connection - emotional and sexual intimacy or the honest and empathically minded study of history - can transcend even the most desperate situations." Wallace herself, in an essay in the January 2008 issue of American Theatre magazine, writes that "we need more writers who envision theatre as a space for social and imaginative transformation" (100). I believe we also need more actors who do the same. She continues,

I am not calling for a condescending theatre or a 'preach to the converted' theatre but a welcoming, vigorous, inquisitive and brutal theatre. If we encourage our students to dig, they will find the body, in all its intimacy and vulnerability, under the garbage of mainstream political rhetoric. (102)

In order to reach for this kind of acting and performing, our class will spend the last half of the semester working on scenes and monologues from The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek and In the Heart of America. At the same time we will be building our characters from those plays through an attempt to "extend our sense of common ground," as the authors of Beginner's Guide to Community Based Arts phrase it. As we continue, I think it will be helpful to use the acronym "CRAFT" that is proposed by that book to assess how we are progressing on a number of fronts. The letters stand for "Contact," or establishing trust, mutual understanding and commitment; "Research," which involves listening, observing and learning; "Action," which refers to producing new works of art - in our case solo performances and scenes; "Feedback," which again means listening to and incorporating community suggestions, critiques, imagination and needs into our work; and "Teaching," which means doing what we can to make our own knowledge and skills available to other people, in the humble hope that our knowledge might in some way help them to build and enhance their own lives and communities.

Please, if you read this and would like to be a part of what we're doing or know someone who would, feel free to write.