Datebook: At first they sat with arms crossed, wondering what this bunch of highfalutin actors had in mind.
They want us to listen to Shakespeare, eh? Us homeless people?
The free sandwiches on a table were the most powerful draw in the room at the beginning. But then the actors from the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival started to lay out what they had in mind. And the nine homeless people who came to this workshop on a Tuesday afternoon, the first of its kind in the Bay Area — and possibly the nation — suddenly started to sit up higher in their seats.
3 comments:
This is such a heartwarming article that articulates a thoughtful incident that would have made so many people so happy and made them feel like they were thought of and that someone thought of them.
There is generally a condescending view or perspective that is attached to homeless people although it is not quite their fault in what situation they are in. Yet they have a perception attached to them which laughs on their social and economic situations.
But what the theater troupe did just speaks so much of how capable people are in terms of making other people happy and make them feel valued.
Just a small gesture of allowing homeless people into their workplace, I can just imagine the kind of inclusion that these people would have felt and how happy the theater group would have been when they would have faces that were now smiling because of them.
Reading this article, immediately made me so happy. Finally someone is taking a chance on the people who aren’t given one. I think things like these, especially for homeless people, is so crucial because it reminds the people who don’t feel valuable, that they are. It also reminds them that they too are a part of society, art, culture, and the world homeless or not. Coming from a place where I see at least 10-20 homeless people a day, it never fails to break my heart. No one will ever understand how or why they are there, and the worst part is that they never get the chance to tell their story. With this workshop, they can. It’s so important to realize that people aren’t where they are for no reason and that just because someone doesn’t necessarily have a home doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of one. Homeless people experience real life struggles and what it means to survive and those stories need to be told along with the rest of ours.
This article was probably one of the most interesting ones, I’ve read in a long time. It was obviously great to hear about how actors were bringing their art to homeless people but it was interesting to hear about what Rebecca Ennals has to say. She calls Shakespeare universal and I want to fight her a little on this. Yes, the message is universal but I think the fact of his language is so old automatically alienates people. It might just be me being my radical young liberal self who doesn’t always value the redoing of plays for four hundred years plus or something else but I always am challenging the statement that Shakespeare is radical. It’s nice that this was done but I find it interesting that the article talks about how it was also done to playtest for the festival’s summer season. I am always a little wary of a company’s ulterior motives. It is definitely a cool idea but it isn’t just for the sake of education, which makes sense for the company, I guess. The most interesting thing written about this article is how Shakespeare’s use of emotional descriptors functions as therapy in a way as well as allowing the people to tell their own story.
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