Breaking Character: Imagine trying to win a tennis match with your legs tied together, or a chess championship blindfolded. Anyone handicapped like that would be doomed to failure. And yet, that is exactly how the United States is facing (one can no longer say “leading”) the world in the Trump era.
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The beginning of this article reminded me of a video I have recently seen. It was an experiment, where a large group of diverse teenages and young adults stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder. The man conducting the experiment told them that this was a race, and whoever crossed the finish line first would win a hundred dollar bill. Then, he read a list of statements. Each person was to take two large steps if the statement applied to them. The statements sounded something like this: “My parents are not divorced,” “I have had access to private schooling,” “I don’t have to pay for college due to a non-athletics related scholarship,” and “I have never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from.” Slowly, a pattern begins to emerge. The Black men and women are being left further and further behind by the white people. When the man comes to the end of his list, he tells the people in the front to look around. He makes it clear that none of them did anything to have a bigger head start or to be left behind, it was all due to uncontrollable factors, but that the people in the front had a monumental chance of winning while the people behind probably couldn’t win, even though they would have a good chance if they were all equal. He told them that someone in the front would win, but it would be foolish of them to not help the people behind out. I think this is a great tool to show people what “trying to win a tennis match with your legs tied together, or a chess championship blindfolded” is like. Art and theatre in America suffers this treatment, as do Black people.
This article makes me immensely happy because it addresses some of the most important issues that theater makers are faced with today. As someone who is getting a theater education, it is reasonable to wonder what the theater industry after four years of a Trump administration. Thus it highlights the immense power that theater holsd. I have often wondered in the past, why I am doing theater when I should be protesting or doing something “substantial”. Articles like this help me remember that theater is substantial and can reach people in a much more intimate way. With all of the controversy in the world I have realized, that you can’t truly change people’s minds, but you can provide empathy and this article reminded me of that. Empathy is one of the best ways to shift someone’s point of view, rather than just giving someone the broad strokes and facts, it gives them a point to identify with.
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