Stage Two is an unassuming space, as you would expect the
basement of Cowles Auditorium to feel.
On Wednesday night two friends and I arrived a few minutes before 9:30
so support our friends in the Performing
the Self final. This is a class in
the theater department, which, according to its course description, offers “Theatre
games and performance techniques for effective communication, problem-solving,
relationship building, self-exploration and self-expression.”
We had no idea what to expect, though my friend in the class
had told me it would all be improvisation.
The class members were, for the most part, dressed in black and ready to
perform. Professor Diana Trotter stood
up and greeted all of us, explaining that the class is split in to two parts:
first, they cover how to address conflict through theater, both interpersonal
and communal. Then, they cover a unit
called “interplay.” This is a series of forms
which lead to combinations of movement and stories, silence and song, as
she described it. Basically, the class
would be performing different spontaneous acting exercises that Diana called
out for them to do.
The audience members yelled out themes to be written on the
board so that the players would have something to go off of when improvising
stories, and then they started. The
first piece was called “walk, stop, run,” which involved everyone starting on
the sides of the room and then doing different movements across the floor in a
completely random pattern. Throughout
the night groups of varying sizes would come up to perform different forms.
Three people got up and did interpretive dance to a song. Three people did a “side by side story,”
which meant they each stood next to each other and told three different stories
all at the same time, talking over each other.
Another group created a “vocal choir,” each person making a new sound
until the entire group was making sounds in harmony.
My favorite was the “gesture choir,” a form wherein one person monologues in the front while the rest
stand behind her and imitate her motions.
The topic on the whiteboard she used as inspiration was “capitalism,”
and she told a story about buying a burger at Zips. It was fascinating and strange, and I really
enjoyed it. More than anything I admired
the fearlessness of people who can take a class like that and perform
completely on the spot in front of other people. They were obviously comfortable working with
each other, and it made me see how theater performance really could be a means
of working through conflict, or at least expressing those emotions. Would you ever take this class?
