Someone Else's Shoes
“One, pursue the truth (come one, come on)
Two, learn something new
Three, accept yourself and you’ll accept others too!
Four, let love shine
Five, let pride be your guide
Six, you change the world when you change your mind!”
I grew up in a house with some of the smartest people I know. My father and my sister are both science nerds. They sometimes say a five-word sentence and the only things I understand are the conjunctions. My mom is money smart and generally “adult stuff” smart. I didn’t start to love learning until much later in life. As a kid, I did well in school but only because I knew how to study. I didn’t retain information past the exams and to this day I am self-conscious about my “smarts.” Being around very “book smart”-type people makes me nervous. So naturally, I ended up going to work everyday at one of the best academic schools in the country, surrounded by PHD-holding, expert-level teachers and students who are writing essays in 9th grade that I couldn’t dream of writing in graduate school. Naturally.
Of course, being a genius is great! It opens a lot of doors that I couldn’t even dream of knocking on. However, what a lot of self-reflection and therapy has taught me is that being intelligent is important but being emotionally intelligent is imperative. The ability to connect, empathize, question and discuss are what makes life full and engaging. Emotions never get boring. There is never an answer to be had or a rule to follow. You live and you experience. I would like to petition for all drama classes and productions to be renamed Emotional Intelligence 101 / 201 and so on and so on.
Every time I work on a production of Hairspray with students, an incredible story unfolds. One of the original stories on this blog came from a production of Hairspray Jr. that I worked on in 2012. This year, I was fortunate enough to assist on a HS production of Hairspray with some of the smartest students I know. The show was great, the performances were wonderful, they sang their faces off, danced their tails off and great fun was had by all. But where this story really comes to life is in the experience of doing a talkback.
A talkback is a post-performance experience where members of the audience can ask questions directed towards the cast and crew. Remember, smart people school = smart people questions. We all knew this was not going to be your typical “How long did it take you to learn the dances?” talkback. The themes in Hairspray like racism and segregation, body image, interracial relationships, bullying and gender ALL lend themselves to questions that the students needed to be ready to answer in an emotionally intelligent way. Perfect SAT scores don’t help you here.
Here is a paraphrased version of what our prep session looked like. We discussed many topics; these are just two that really stuck out to me. I gave the kids a bit of a push and the permission to live honestly through the lens of their character. As theater kids, they have a natural inclination to go in that direction anyway.
How does it feel to play a racist character?
Obviously, I don’t like saying some of my lines in the show, but you need these characters to exist in order to see the real struggle and feel the excitement of the happy ending. Without the racist characters, you would not see an accurate representation of the 1960’s or even now. These people exist, we can’t ignore them. Sugar coating their character doesn’t help anyone.
Why do you feel it’s okay for your character of Tracy to wear a ‘fat suit’?
The comments said about Tracy are cruel and should never be said to anyone. Period. The fact that Tracy is overweight is accepted by every character in the show. This doesn’t make her ugly or less than, but it is mentioned as FACT. I am not overweight, therefore we thought it would be shameful to have a girl that is a size 6 be called “a cow, a truck, a pig, etc.” To have characters accept my natural size as “overweight” would create commentary that none of us believe to be true.
The day of our first of three talkbacks, the students seemed ready. Nervous, yet confident. The first question was surprising, genius and one that I did NOT prep students for.
(To Tracy) Are you concerned at all about the ideas of White Savior-ship that can be distilled from the plot of the show?
Yes - I was concerned about that at first. The more I really thought about it, the more I realized that Tracy’s character and choices represent white ally-ship and not white savior-ship. I, as Tracy, never felt like I was saving anyone. I was doing what I thought was right. It was bigger than just me. Tracy doesn’t say “I am going to do it for you”, she says “I am going to do it with you”. That is what we all should be striving for as allies of any kind.
… and then there was applause.
That age old phrase about walking in someone else’s shoes has been around for centuries for a reason. This is what theater allows us an opportunity to do… literally and figuratively. Students who can answer questions like this openly, honestly, and with conviction, will save the world.
