“The Way Through”: Social Action and the Critical Embrace of Failure

• Published in: Theatre topics 2015-06, Vol.25 (2), p.149-160
• Main Author: Martinson, Karen Jean
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; African American Children; African Americans; Dramaturges; Justice; Murders & murder attempts; Pedagogy; Racial Differences; Racism; Resilience (Psychology); Segregation; Social Action; Trauma; Undergraduate Students; Violence
• ISSN: 1054-8378; 1086-3346; 1086-3346
• DOI: 10.1353/tt.2015.0025

[...]an expectation of failure enables facilitators to anticipate and adapt to painful disruptions as participants leave the program. [...]their words would be read through the optics of their black bodies and their identifiable participation in a social-work program, which already placed them in assumed narratives of both trauma and failure, of having been hurt and needing assistance. The youth experienced daily the soft racism of lowered expectations; I wanted them to taste the thrill of excellence. [...]given the extremely personal situations they expressed through the text, as well as the potential for them to be viewed as social-work charity cases, I felt it would have been irresponsible and potentially damaging to put them onstage as performers without a polished piece that was well-rehearsed. [...]a dramaturgical evaluation of disruptions that may occur in the course of a project can structure the kinds of loss to which social action is prone; it provides a way to hold onto the impressions of those who leave, to keep them present in their absence.