Janine Warrington - 2017 Director

January 28, 2017

Last night's performance was our largest audience and our highest quality performance of the run so far. I was very appreciative of the crowd’s enthusiasm – they all wanted to book us all over the city and have us perform for everyone they know, which is really quite flattering and encouraging, even if not entirely possible.

There was something a bit off about the talk-back, though. While enthusiastic, it felt like nothing was really being accomplished. A couple thoughts about why this might be:

As Megan pointed out on the drive back to campus, “The talk-back was dominated by white men.” It’s true. A couple of elderly mustachioed white men did most of the talking. Most of what they said was how important it was to support women’s rights. Pretty much everything they said could have been summed up in that simple statement. But they said a lot of words to communicate that, rather than allowing the women in the audience to express their own experiences.
Our panelist from Abuse Recovery Ministry Services said some beautiful and important words about how domestic and sexual abuse are so prevalent in our world, and yet they are treated as taboo subjects. She was saying how this script is important in approaching the difficult subject, and I was hoping that we could begin breaking down the shame surrounding the subject during that talk-back discussion. But instead, immediately after her tearful comments, somebody asked a logistical question about the set. We never returned to the subject of abuse. I wish I would have brought it back up and made the audience sit with it.

I guess I need to spend some more time thinking about what my goal with the talk-backs is. I want the audience to have a space to ask questions and to process because I love having the space to do that conversationally after seeing or reading something provocative. But I guess engaging in tough subjects isn’t as natural for everyone else as it is for me. I need to think about how to best guide the conversation and not let the audience off easy while still allowing them to think about the questions and concerns that they have.