Pairing Verbatim Theater and Theater of the Oppressed to Provoke Startling Empathy

• In Event: Volcanic Disruptions: On the Intersectional Synergy of Theater of the Oppressed and Teacher Education

Abstract

Purpose:
In this paper, we reflect on the way our verbatim theatre script Out at School was paired with Theatre of the Oppressed work in an undergraduate applied theatre class. Through an engagement with the complex lives of LGBTQ families at school, students moved from a response of “startling empathy” to a discussion of the ways they might act to challenge heteronormativity and cis-sexism in school.

Conceptual framework
Out at School draws on the practice of verbatim theatre, where the words of people who are interviewed are transcribed, edited, arranged, and re-contextualized so that they can be performed. One reason researchers and artists are drawn to verbatim theatre is because they want to share stories from marginalized communities and invite audiences to bear witness to testimonies they might not otherwise hear or encounter. This bearing witness is a naming of the world by both artists and audiences tied to the belief that by naming the world we are coming to know the world, and therefore can work towards changing it.

Modes of inquiry
Author 1’s decision to pair a reading of Out at School with the use of Theatre of the Oppressed techniques initiated a conversation about anti-oppression education, inclusive schooling practices, and the experiences of LGBTQ families with her students. While the initial reading provoked startling empathy in the students, the subsequent Image Theatre activities extended the revelatory and emotive work of the play and positioned students’ bodies as active participants in the unfolding of the drama. This process invited students to determine what might come next: to not only work through a call for change, but also to imagine, concretely, what needs to change and how they (and society) might go about doing that.

Data sources
Out at School is currently based on findings from a selection of 37 video and audio interviews the team undertook with LGBTQ families about their experiences in Ontario public schools.

Results
Out LGBTQ students expressed a recognition and validation of their experiences through the stories they heard, while other students revealed new awareness—a startling empathy—about the heteronormativity and cis-sexism that exists in schools. Many students’ assumptions about the world they live in and the spaces they occupy were upended through their co-intentional dialogue with the script. Their experience of startling empathy created an emotional shift and a movement towards a liberatory praxis.

Scholarly significance
Creating change in school for LGBTQ families, children and youth is the reason why the team designed the research study. Students’ reactions to the play suggests that audiences have the potential to examine their taken-for-granted assumptions, as well as their ideas and emotional beliefs around family, gender and sexuality and then translate that to action.

Authors

• Pamela Baer, University of Toronto

• Jenny Salisbury, OISE/University of Toronto

• Tara Goldstein, OISE/University of Toronto