Culture and Community: Playback Theatre

Author(s): Jo Salas
Source: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 27, No. 2, Grassroots Theatre (Summer, 1983), pp. 15-
25
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1145490
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 Playback Theatre is a company based in the Mid-Hudson Valley. There are 11 people
in the company, six of them founding members. Five people are salaried. The entire group
meets weekly and for performances.
Since 1975 Playback Theatre has been teaching and performing a form of improvisation
devised by its director, Jonathan Fox. In this form, the dramas of real lives, related by
volunteers from the audience, become theatre pieces created on the spot by the actors.
Someone once described it as "theatre of the cave," referring to theatre's origin in the
ancient impulse to communicate and dramatize one's experience, thereby integrating it
both in one's psyche and in the evolution of the community.
For this kind of personal storytelling to work in the modern context of an audience
who begins the evening as strangers-accustomed to privacy and expecting to sit back
and be entertained-it is essential to create an atmosphere of safety and respect. The
actors, on stage throughout the performance, are receptive to the unknown roles they will
be asked to play, and come back to their own personalities between scenes. There is an
element of humility: They are there to reflect and fulfill the audience's stories. Seeing the
actors' demeanor, audience members feel safe enough to respond when they are invited
to talk about something that has happened to them-a happy or painful memory, a dream,
a fantasy. The "Teller," guided by the director, or "Conductor," casts his or her story from
the row of actors. The chosen performers, supported by music and lighting, transform the
story into a theatrical scene, using boxes and pieces of cloth as props. Story follows story
as a collective drama is built, reflecting the lives of the people present.
At a performance last year in New Paltz, New York, the hometown of several company
members, a woman named Paula talked about her fear of driving in snowstorms. She

THE DRAMA REVIEW, Volume 27, Number 2, Summer 1983 (T98)

0012-5962/83/020015-11 $4.00/0
? 1983 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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16 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T98

had come to several previous performances, but this was her first time as a Teller. She
chose an actor to play herself and two more to become the snow. Other actors became
customers in her Main Street store, where the scene began. At the climax of the scene,
the actors playing the snow threatened and taunted the onstage Paula as she drove
homeward trembling. Paula, watching, laughed in recognition. After the scene was over,
the Conductor asked her if she wanted to see a transformation-a repeat of the scene
with a new ending. Paula wanted to see herself triumph over her fear; the actors created
this for her.
Some weeks later I was in her store. It was the first time I had seen her since the
performance. She told me with great pleasure and pride that watching that scene had
lessened her fear of driving in snow. She was able to turn the portion that remained into
anger and a determination to master the situation. The transformation of her snow panic
had also had a similar effect on other fears in her life. Other audience members had told
her that they, too, were afraid of driving in bad weather and that they remembered this
scene at those frightening moments. The experience of telling her story in public in her
own town had deepened her sense of the town as a community.
Each country, each culture has a profound need for art that is about its own ways
of life, incorporating its own sounds, images, symbols and legends. Cultures feel legitimacy,
validity and pride when they see their reflections in their art.
When several members of Playback were in Australia in 1980, we met a man who
had been part of a team that traveled through parts of the outback, spending a few days
in small settlements, becoming familiar enough with each one to write a few songs or a
play about that community. Then they would move on, leaving the song or play with the
people. It was apparent from the man's words and from the slides he showed how

Members of Playback Theatre improvise a story about flying while dreaming.

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 PLAYBACK 17

On a tour of Australia, actors devise a scene about kookaburras.

momentous this was for the communities they visited. Perhaps the sense of validation
created in this way would encourage the villagers to write their own plays.
One of Playback Theatre's main roles is to offer our own community the chance to
recognize itself as an entity. Traditional storytelling had this function. The experience of
the group, clan or village was heard, crafted, distilled, recorded and told to those to whom
it meant the most. The storyteller could be a shaman, a purveyor of magic and truth, vital
to the health of the group. When accepted in this role by a community, Playback Theatre
embodies these functions and qualities.
After seven years in the same area-Poughkeepsie and New Paltz-there appears
to be some degree of acceptance. It shows in different ways: One is the large number
of familiar faces, our "constituency," who reappear regularly at performances, some of
whom seek further involvement by joining classes and workshops. Another sign is the
diversity of community agencies and organizations who ask us to work with them or
perform for them. Playback Theatre is remembered when the need arises for entertainment,
for the airing of problems or for celebration.
The cornerstones of a Playback performance are common to all lives: pride, chagrin,
triumph, loss, expansiveness, fear, humiliation, delight; these exist within the contexts of
family and societal relationships, work and the larger world. People are eager to tell and
hear life-stories, although both the stories and the audience's reception tend to fall short
of the levels of intimacy, electricity, and revelation that are often part of a performance
for an established group (for instance, a conference, a congregation, a class). There is
no audience that does not share, however, the desire to tell stories, as well as the

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The actors use large pieces of colored cloth as sets and props.

excitement and fear associated with doing so. In the hundreds of performances given by
Playback over the past seven years, there have always been Tellers.
In a Playback Theatre performance, there are prescribed rituals and forms, readily
understood by new audience members and providing continuity to those who have come
before. The performances are always set up in the same way: the Conductor on the left,
seated beside the empty Teller's chair; the musician on the left with an array of instruments
spread out on the floor; between them a semi-circle of actors sitting on boxes; and upstage
at left a wooden structure hung with many colored pieces of cloth, to be used as props.
The words used by the Conductor are formulas for creating specific effects. The actors'
procedure in preparing for and concluding a scene is always the same. Along with the
ritual elements, these techniques provide an atmosphere of respect, familiarity and safety
in which both audience and actors are invited to be adventurous, spontaneous and creative.
The stories are fragments of lives, often chaotic, half-understood by the Teller, without
clear beginnings, endings or climaxes. This is the nature of ongoing experience. It is
difficult to describe and contain real events without remaining on the anecdotal level. It
is the task of the Conductor, the actors, the musician and the lighting person to receive
raw material, filter it through their understanding and inspiration, condense certain aspects
of it, expand others-all without discussion-and present Teller and audience with a
theatre piece. The Teller has an opportunity to comment on and correct the scene, if

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 PLAYBACK 19

necessary. In stories with an unhappy outcome, the Teller may be invited to find a new
ending, after seeing it once.
This process allows the Teller and other audience members to see their experience
crystallized, made clear and cohesive. In scenes where a transformation is appropriate,
the Teller has a chance to be the refiner, to craft the raw material of life. A series of
moments from the confusion of ordinary life becomes the subject for intense artistic focus
and expression; the moments are comprehended, celebrated and entrusted to the community's
reservoir of self-knowledge.
At one performance in Albany the first story told was a father's about trouble between
his two teenage sons and how he was able to help by listening and talking to one of
them. The last story of the evening was told by an elderly woman who was reluctant to
leave her seat in the audience to come onstage. Her story was about the peaceful death
of her husband: at home, surrounded by loving family, despite choruses of criticism and
unwelcome advice from friends who thought he should have been hospitalized. There
was a small group of elderly people in the front row. They did not participate by telling
stories, but I saw a look of wonder and excitement on their faces as they realized that
they were invited to be creators, to share in the act of theatre. Everywhere Playback
Theatre has performed, it has encountered this eagerness for the public and ritualized
communication of personal experience. Theatre may have other functions but none more
fundamental.

Jo Salas performs with Playback Theatre.

Excerpt from
A Playback Theatre
Performance

The following is an edited and condensed transcript of a Playback Theatre performance

that took place in June 1981, at the Mid-Hudson Arts and Science Center in Poughkeepsie,
N.Y., Playback's home base. The space-a large, bare, high-ceilinged room with large
open windows-is filled to capacity, about 65 spectators. The conductor is Jonathan
Fox, founder and director of Playback Theatre. When the audience enters and takes their
seats, the company is hidden on a high balcony. The musician plays an out-of-tune
fanfare on a slide-whistle, and all descend the stairs noisily. The actors sit on a semi-
circle of wooden boxes upstage. The musician sits stage left and the Conductor stage
right.

CONDUCTOR: (Enthusiastically.) Welcome to Playback Theatre, everybody! (Applause.)

For those of you who are here for the first time, we tell stories about moments
of our lives. For example, what happened to you today? Were you happy? Were
you sad? What did you do today, did anything happen that was special? (Pause.)
What was your day like?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good.

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20 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T98

CONDUCTOR: Yes? What did you do that was good?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I rode a bicycle to work.
CONDUCTOR: What's your name?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mike.

CONDUCTOR: Mike. (To audience.) Mike feels good because he rode a bicycle to work
today. (To Mike.) Watch.

(One by one, five or six actors move to center stage and make a sound-and-movement
image expressive of Mike's response, each building on the other's actions. This short,
animated action, accompanied by music, takes about one minute; it is called a fluid
sculpture. The audience applauds.)

CONDUCTOR: Was it anything like that, Mike? (Laughter from audience.)

MIKE: Yes.

CONDUCTOR: You can say no, you know. (Surveys audience.) Who had a different kind
of day today?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was so bored that I got depressed and went to sleep.
CONDUCTOR: So bored that you got depressed and went to sleep... are you on vacation
already? (Laughter. Audience member smiles and nods.) Watch.

(Actors create another fluid sculpture. There is another exchange with an audience member,
followed by a third fluid sculpture. After this, the company members introduce themselves.
Following each name, the musician plays a short phrase on the slide whistle, different
for each actor.)

CONDUCTOR: Now, I said before that we were going to be telling stories tonight. You
know, nowadays people aren't used to telling stories the way they were in the
old days. Now we read, and we watch, but we don't tell so much. So before we
go on, I would like to invite you to tell a story to someone sitting next to you,
and if you don't know them, introduce yourself to them, because this is a theatre
of neighbors rather than strangers. So share with anyone around you something
that happened to you this week, and if you know the person, tell them something
they don't already know. Go ahead, try it out!

(The audience tells each other stories. The volume increases as people get more involved
in telling and hearing. After a few minutes, the Conductor interrupts.)

CONDUCTOR: Now that wasn't much time, but were you able to do it?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, just getting warmed up.

CONDUCTOR: Just getting warmed up. Good! Now you know our secret! (Points to chair
beside him.) Well, this chair we call the Teller's chair, and that's for someone
who wants to share with all of us a moment-perhaps one of those moments
you didn't get to finish telling-and see it acted out on the spot. So who would
like to be the first Teller tonight here at Playback Theatre?

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 PLAYBACK 21

(Several people raise their hands. The Conductor chooses a nine-year-old girl, who tells
a story about a mean teacher. The actors enact the scene. The actor playing the teacher
includes the audience in her menacing regard. At the conclusion of the scene, the Teller
returns smiling to her seat. Another comes forward, this time a man who tells about riding
his moped to work on a rainy day, dressed in yellow rain gear. He is mocked by
Poughkeepsie's eccentric street people because he looks like the Gorton's Fishsticks
man. The scene ends at a boring meeting presided over by the County Executive, which
the actors produce non-literally: Three of them convey the mood by huddling together
chanting "nothing, nothing," and the actor playing the County Executive talks in an
endless monotone, using official-sounding jargon. The audience participates by becoming
the sound of the rain at the appropriate time. The Teller, watching, laughs a lot, especially
at the climax, when the Teller's actor takes his yellow costume and silences the County
Executive by smothering her with it.)

CONDUCTOR: Did that capture the spirit of your experience?

TELLER: Yes. Especially at the end. It really covered the whole thing.

CONDUCTOR: Thank you very much.

(Laughter and applause as Teller returns to audience and actors put away cloth and
boxes and sit down. Next was an interlude where children who had been in a Playback
class took the stage. They gave a mini-performance, conducted by their teacher, a
Playback actor. The audience was delighted by their skill and spontaneity. When this
was over, 75 minutes had passed since the show began.)

CONDUCTOR: We're only going to do one or two more stories tonight. Who has a story
that they'd feel bad if they didn't tell? (Audience member raises hand.) Kenny?
(He comes to Teller's seat.) O.K. Your name is Kenny, and where does your
story take place?
KENNY: Well, it's all about the Atlanta situation. This is something that has been bothering
me ... well, since it happened, it's been bothering me.

CONDUCTOR: How do you read about it, or see it, or hear about it? How do you follow
the Atlanta situation?

KENNY: I know about it through the media.

CONDUCTOR: Like through T.V. or ... ?

KENNY: All the media.

CONDUCTOR: O.K. Pick someone to be you.

KENNY: No. That's not where I want the story to be.

CONDUCTOR: I Know. That's O.K., but I want someone to be you.

KENNY: Oh, O.K. Pete.

(As Actors are chosen, they stand up, maintaining their presence and inwardly preparing
for their roles.)

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22 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T98

CONDUCTOR: Because you're seeing it and feeling it and experiencing it, even though
you're not there. You with me?

KENNY: Right.
CONDUCTOR: O.K. That's why we pick someone to be you. That's just to remind us
that it's through you that this is coming to us. What's happening in Atlanta? Let's
pick a moment.

KENNY: Oh, you mean you want me to pick ... well, you're kind of rearranging ... I
was thinking ... What are you getting at, because I was going on a different
way, I guess.

CONDUCTOR: O.K. Tell me how you were going, and I'll see if I ...
KENNY: O.K. And then you can bring it back. I was going to talk about the situation,
and how it's been going, and then the other night there was a program, Nightline
did a special, they thought they caught the man. But I didn't think it's an individual,
I have a whole different idea about who's doing it, but that's ... that might be
irrelevant. But the last time I came to Playback, I came from Albany, and just
as I got off the bus there was a march down Main Street. And there were about
20 black people, I'd say, and one or two white people. And I found out that the
march was for the Atlanta children. So I decided that this is something I care
about, this is something I was going to participate in.

CONDUCTOR: I want to stop you.

KENNY: O.K.

CONDUCTOR: I'd like to do either that march or what you think is happening in Atlanta.
Which do you feel is closer to you?
KENNY: Well, I think the march.

CONDUCTOR: And did you join it?

KENNY: Yes, I joined the march.
CONDUCTOR: O.K. Let's pick, let's see, you said about 20 black people and one or two
white people.
KENNY: Yes, well, about that ratio.

CONDUCTOR: Pick someone to be the white person.

KENNY: Judy.

CONDUCTOR: What's a word for that white person who's marching?

KENNY: Concerned.

CONDUCTOR: O.K. And you joined them, right?

KENNY: I joined them, out of concern.

CONDUCTOR: You're getting off a bus in Poughkeepsie, and you see the marchers, and
what happens?

KENNY: I join the march, and I start talking to a young man about my age, who started
explaining to me what was going on, and then we started talking more about the

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Playback performers create a birthday party where there is a crisis about
balloons.

Atlanta situation, and we both pretty much had the same view. I think it's a
conspiracy.
CONDUCTOR: O.K.

KENNY: This is my opinion.

CONDUCTOR: O.K. And what happens at the end of the march?
KENNY: As the march progresses, what I see is people's lack of understanding about
what is happening in Atlanta. 50,000 kids are abducted each year, and in this
situation we have 28 black youngsters.
CONDUCTOR: What do you think is happening?

KENNY: What I think is happening is that people ... the white people aren't concerned
because these kids are not white, and the black people aren't concerned because
it's not their turf. As we marched, we got views from people in the street, black as
well as white, who wouldn't join us for some reason.

CONDUCTOR: Let's have a few people to be the non-joiners. (Kenny picks three actors.)
And these people who haven't been chosen can be the marchers. O.K.

KENNY: And then it gathers down at the baseball field, where there is a rally of some
sort. The mayor came and spoke but very very briefly. But also, right across the
road was a big fair, and within me I find it hard to justify a fair, while something
of this intensity is going on.

CONDUCTOR: Good, so we're going to have marchers. And we're going to have you
getting off the bus and joining the march; and there are going to be people on the
street; and it's going to end up at this rally.

KENNY: Right.

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24 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T98

CONDUCTOR: ... and there will be a fair going on. Let's have this part of the audience
(Indicating.) be the fair. You can feel it for yourselves when time comes. O.K.?
Watch.

(The lights dim. The musician plays rhythmic percussion music, setting a mood of urgency.
The actors go to the prop tree and choose pieces of cloth to wear; e.g. Judy, as the
white marcher, accentuates her role by wearing a piece of white cloth. One of the
onlookers wears a piece of cloth around his eyes, signifying blindness. As they are ready,
the actors take positions on stage and remain still. When all are ready, the music ceases.
The lights go up.)

TELLER'S ACTOR: (Gets off bus, looking confused and amazed.) Wow! What's going
on down there?

(Musician and other actors, using voices, create ominous sound effects. Marchers circle
slowly around stage.)

MARCHER 1: We're marching for the children. You want to join?

MARCHER 2: We're marching for the Atlanta children. It's got to stop.

WHITE MARCHER: We've got to show them that we care.

MARCHER 2: We shall overcome.

MARCHER 1: We've got to show our concern. That's about all we can do ...
TELLER'S ACTOR: Hey man, I want to join along. O.K.?
WHITE MARCHER: Sure.

(Brooding violin music plays throughout. Marchers begin to sing "We Shall Overcome."
They try to bring others from the street into the march.)

STREET PERSON: No, I don't want to get involved. I'm not going to get involved.
TELLER'S ACTOR: Why not?
MARCHER 1: Come join us.
STREET PERSON 1: It's not my scene.
MARCHER 2: Are you ready to join us?
STREET PERSON 2: I'm white, buddy.
WHITE MARCHER: So am I.

TELLER'S ACTOR: Hey, come on in.

STREET PERSON 3: Listen, I don't have any kids.
MARCHER 1: Jesus!

TELLER'S ACTOR: Come on. You've got to get your head on straight.
STREET PERSON 3: I'm not a political person. I'm sorry.
TELLER'S ACTOR: I don't understand.

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 PLAYBACK 25

MARCHER 2: Lady, interested in joining?

STREET PERSON 1: Maybe another time.

MARCHER 1: Join us.

STREET PERSON 2: I said I'm white.

(Violin music becomes more anguished and strident. The lighting, bright orange at scene's
opening, changes gradually to low blue.)

WHITE MARCHER: Well, we're all we've got.

MARCHER 1: We'll be at the rally soon, anyway.

TELLER'S ACTOR: (Angrily.) Boy!

MARCHER 2: I feel alone.

(As marchers continue to circle slowly, street people giggle and talk nonchalantly.)

TELLER'S ACTOR: (loud) When is this crazy world going to get its head on straight!
(Music and laughter both increase as T.A. gets louder.) I don't understand this
crazy world! (Shouting.) Don't you know what's important here!! This is important!!!

(Music and laughter of carnival, partly created by audience, take over, leaving Teller's
Actor in distress.)

TELLER'S ACTOR: (Sighs.) I don't understand you.

(Violin music continues, reflecting teller's sadness and frustration. Marchers and T.A.
gather close together, their configuration expressing solidarity and solitude. End of scene.
Actors hold final position as lights are dimmed momentarily. Actors look at the Teller, a
gesture called the "Acknowledgment." Audience applauds. The Teller nods.)

CONDUCTOR: Kenny, is that how it was?

KENNY: Yes.

CONDUCTOR: Would you like to see it differently?

KENNY: (Pause.) No. That's how it is.
CONDUCTOR: Thank you.

(Kenny returns to his seat, as the actors clear the stage and sit down. There is one more
scene, this one about being a 15-year-old girl lost in San Francisco. The climax comes
when the girl is found and, in her moment of relief, is able to tell her father that she loves
him.)

CONDUCTOR: Well, ladies and gentlemen, we had a number of stories tonight. They're
our stories. And we experienced them together. Stories that contained hatred as
well as love. (Applause as actors stand and join hands. Conductor invites the
children who acted to come onstage.) Thank-you very much, everybody. (Applause.)
Thank you.

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