Read between the lines
It is so interesting to watch kids grow up. I see students go from adorable nuggets of joy (also sometimes nuggets of terror) to awkward middle schoolers, constantly confused and easily jolted, to semi-confident, know-it-all high schoolers. Obviously there are the many stages in between but I usually only see my kids once a week so I miss out on the psycho in between nonsense.
The high school age is where things get interesting, especially in theater and especially with ME! I am not a typical teacher. I am here to teach you theater yes, but with that comes empathy, compassion, dialogue and connection. It's not only the nature of theater but the nature of who I am at my core. Surprisingly enough, teachers are real people too. I know... shocker! I show my students the real, human me. And while they still respect me and look at me as a mentor, I sit in a different chair than Ms. so and so. Not a more important chair by any means... just a different one.
To my own fault, sometimes I feel like Lucy from Charlie Brown, sitting behind her little booth. "Psychiatric help... 5 cents". I am a shoulder to cry, an advice giver extraordinaire. But I have also been a punching bag and a test dummy. The thing you hit when you can't punch someone out. The person you call out when others won't listen. The person you yell at when you don't know what question you are trying to answer.
I was working on a production with a group of high school students, many of whom I had had since they were nuggets. This particular group was full of heavy hitters, upwards of fifteen graduating seniors who I felt like I had birthed from my womb, and a whole mess of other high schoolers who I could have sworn I was related to. Needless to say, we were all close. All except one. For the purposes of this blog I will call him Cash. Cash used to LOVE me. We used to be buddies. But one day those adoring eyes turned to eye rolls and I just couldn't them to stop.
Cash had a habit of calling me out on the tiniest things. If my sentences made no sense or if I used the wrong word, I would hear about it. I laughed it off. Hey, I'm only human right? Show them your human side. Sticks and stones and all that. But one time he called me homophobic. ME! Lexie! Homophobic? That is like saying the earth is flat or that there is no such thing as global warming!!!!!! Do you know how many gay men I accidentally dated? I only have two straight guy friends. I am the maid of honor in a lesbian wedding! That one hit me and hit me hard. From that moment on, I was on the defensive.
Fast forward to our final dress rehearsal. We are staging bows. Cash is staged to run out with his female counterpart. I tell Cash to let his lady bow first.
THAT IS SEXIST!
Record scratch.
Silence.
Then. 'Why does the lady have to bow first? We do exactly the same amount in the show. There is no difference between our two characters, why does she have to bow first?
It then all of a sudden dawned on me that Cash was not whining. It wasn't about placement, it was about understanding why. Why is 'Ladies first' a thing? When two people have equal stage time and are of equal status in the show, why doesn't a man bow first and woman second? I realized, I don't have an answer. There is no reason except, that is the way it has always been done. Perhaps many moons ago there was a reason and perhaps it was a good one, but in 2017 (at the time), that reason doesn't seem to translate. If I take a step back and read between the lines, listening for the minutia in each semi-aggressive comment, perhaps I would have realized that they had nothing to do with me. Perhaps they were just a way of processing all that crap that teenagers are going through. All that growing up stuff. Sure, the delivery wasn't great but we can work on that. The sentiment was right.
In the end they bowed together.
