Selves in Theater

Posted by Alexa Lahr in English 3 · Block/Franz/Taylor-Baranik · E Band on

Introduction: Theater uncovers your many “selves.”  Playing different characters makes a stronger person and grows their compassion for other “selves.”  I tell of my time in theater and how it has grown me and my “selves.”  I got the idea for this project from the video we watched in class.  Then when I “free wrote” about my life in theater, I just kept writing and got this piece.  Then of course I edited to get this final product.  This is a different structured essay then many of my other papers. I felt like it was necessary to talk about the meaning of selves more throughout the essay. Instead of doing the story in the beginning of the essay I did it in the middle.  I decided I should just try something new and see how it goes.


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Selves in Theater
As an actress I have to play many parts and put myself in different people's bodies.  I have to form my body into many different characteristics.  My body is like a etch a sketch to the theater.  Walking around a space, I am given a task to form my body in a certain way and to start acting like a self that is not my own.  Sometimes to get into my character I have to do a “roll up” and “roll down.”  This is a theatrical exercise where you “roll down” one vertebrae at a time as yourself and “roll up” as the character you are playing.  Theater can be an escape for people like it is for me.  I have always felt safe playing someone else.  It always came naturally to me to express and put on “other selves” through theater.  For me playing different selves helped me develop my true self.

My first role in theater was when I was 8.  This form of art helped me through a time I was going through puberty and other life changing challenges in my life.  The theater group I am a participant in, “Yes!And… Collaborative Arts,”  gives people a chance to grow up and figure different things out in this world.  For instance, over the summer we put on a play called “Paper Trail.”  This play was about six different situations that were going on in the world including the Stanford rape case, Flint water crises and the political debates involving Trump and Hillary.  We took these situations and three additional ones and acted them out through various theatrical genres. We portrayed the Stanford rape case as a 1950s musical; the Flint water crisis was portrayed as a movement piece; and the political debates as a abstract theater piece.  In the Stanford 1950s musical rape case, I played the rapist Brock Turner.  This was definitely a different experience for me having to play such an intense character.  At around the time I found out I was going to play Brock I found out about my friend getting raped.  This was a very hard topic to talk about but I felt the need to play this role to bring justice to my friend.  Being inside the head of such a awful person made me think of this world differently. It helped me grow on my thinking of the rapist and my knowledge on the Stanford rape case.  I learned about how Brock's family impacted his acts and the different influences in his life.  I also learned more about the white privilege and the fact that white men are less likely to stay in jail for heinous crimes.  An instance of white privilege is demonstrated in these song lyrics...

“THE LESSONS LEARNED DON’T BE CONCERNED YOU’RE TOO WHITE TO BE PROPERLY CONDEMNED

OHHHH WE SAID IT. IF YOU WERE BLACK YOU’D FIND YOURSELF IN JAIL

WE SAID IT.

BUT YOUR PRIVILEGED CLASS

GONNA SAVE YOUR ASS

POCKET CHANGE WILL PAY FOR YOUR BAIL.”

These song lyrics from the play came after Brock found out he was receiving only a 3 month sentence,which is much shorter than many black people would get.

Theater has always been a way to cope, a way for me to step outside of myself.  It is a way for me to stretch myself and put on many different masks to uncover my identity.  For me the theater has always been that safe place.  Theater isn’t the outlet for everyone though.  Some people feel awkward or even stage fright.  This is okay, as there are many other methods of stretching your “selves,”  the point is you need to put yourself into other “selves” shoes to grow.  Even though the theater is a safe place for me, there are still actors and actresses that get confused in the process.  Some start to lose and get confused who their true “selves” are.  The thing is, how do we truly find ourselves and answer the question everyone wants to know: who are we?  We play so many roles in life depending who we are around.  Erving Goffman in the Performed Self video claims,“We display a series of masks to others, in acting roles, controlling and stageing how we appear.”  No matter who we are and no matter how secure we think we are as people it is normal for us to adapt to who is around us.  We as actors and actresses in this world want to try and fit into the right roles of a group of people.

Theater is a means to open our eyes and jump into many different selves as well to uncover the challenges others had to go through to be who they are.  This will help us not to get lost and grow vain and unconcerned of others, rather it empowers us to grow compassionate towards other and to grow into decent beings.  I can say that I would not be the same person I am today without theater.  I do not think I would be the caring and compassionate person I am today.  Using my theater skills I am able to put myself into other’s shoes, which is the key thing to do to grow in compassion for others.  In conclusion,  theater is a powerful medium in uncovering “many selfs” within an actor and actress, but it also an effective tool in growing more compassionate towards others as you are called to step into their shoes.

"Erving Goffman and the Performed Self." YouTube. N.p., 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.https://youtu.be/6Z0XS-QLDWM

“Paper Trails: Finale Of Stanford Peice” 2016 Brooke Sextonhttps://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1nGRElZ5_kyVP_v0vxLSlPWMRKsAEMTJHy670dRrq4z4/edit?usp=sharing

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