theatre for social change

When lights dim in theatrical spaces, something changes. The line blurs between what is in reality occurring and what is simply a façade and we are all unanimous in our acceptance of the change. We sit and accept what will be presented before us (often without immediate judgement) because after all isn’t this just a show and won’t it end, and don’t we have the privilege of leaving it behind at the door—if we so choose?

But some shows are tangible in a way that strips us of this privilege.

Some shows are too palpable, too close to home; too much our home itself. When we walk away, what we learn coats us in unexpected ways. It clings to our hair and our coats. We can’t leave it behind because we were taught each other’s traumas and joys, defeats and victories. And we wanted this drenching. We showed up. We waited in line for hours. We turned off our iPhones and tuned out our judgments. We chose a commitment of full focus for two hours in honor of respecting and learning from our peers.

I am talking, of course, about Me Too Monologues. But even more than that, I am talking about theatre as a medium of fostering social change. Me Too is a way through which university experiences are projected wholeheartedly. The anonymity allows for complete vulnerability on the part of the writer, and leaves the audience knowing the story could be anyone’s; their roommate’s, their lab partner’s, their best friend’s. The show lacks editorial interference. Without set, costume, microphones, or adaptation, it is storytelling in its purest form. Just one actor on stage at a time, telling you a story.

The prevention of context for the stories, the nature of an anonymous submission process, and the necessary refrain from the façade or pretence (often integral in a theatrical production), allow the pieces to stand both on their own as individual experiences as well as something of a shared experience. This work aims to amplify voices otherwise silent; to foster a more empathetic environment in all spaces. And it can do so by its unrefined truisms. How can we judge a faceless author? What do our prejudices feed on without any background? Where do we run from a vulnerability so brave and so local?

We are left drenched in each other’s information. We are faced with what we are and we cannot leave it at the door.

These identity stories—like so many still left untold—are integral parts of duke’s humanity. They are our struggles and thrills, our frustrations and our intersecting selves. They are presented without artifice, and they are hard to swallow. At a certain point, it doesn’t even matter who the author is because the piece itself comes to represent an imperfect aspect of the transient, ever-morphing, ever-diversifying collective identity of this school. The theatre allows for this representation to occur, and no medium than theatre could accomplish what Me Too Monologues does.

When lights dim in some theatrical spaces, we change.