Statements by Janie Funk, staff, Family Crisis Support Center "Hope House", Norton, Virginia

By Michael Fields

Hope House was a recent community/artist partner to Roadside Theater in the creation of a theater work titled "Voices from the Battlefront."

This work grew out of a conversation between Donna Porterfield, managing director of Roadside Theater, and Joy Briggs, former head of Hope House. They had adjoining offices for a period of time. The issue of domestic violence, the cycle of that violence in families, and especially the women’s stories gave genesis to the idea that perhaps there was a power in collaborating with Roadside Theater to create a work that explored this issue in the community. Given the state of the economy, the community has a high rate of domestic violence – especially a problem for women who attempt to break the cycle.

While the idea sounded good to the heads of both organizations, there was an awkwardness and hesitation on the part of the Hope House staff. The staff felt the theater practice was very foreign, were very suspicious, and did not see the value of the collaboration to their work.

The following process was then started to begin the work.

1. Story circles with staff.

2. Interviews with staff led by Donna Porterfield. She felt they needed to also get to know and trust each other. Normally interviews are not part of the methodology Roadside uses, though it was stressed that that methodology is meant to be adapted to each specific situation.

3. Story circles with the women (clients) at the center. Initially those topics didn’t have to do with abuse. The most vocal loved it. Those who never said a word were among those who wanted to act it out.

4. Roadside also did a bit of their performance work for all these folks, setting a context for the artistic work. Roadside’s work for these women involved stories and song for the women and their kids.

After that, the women said they couldn’t tell their stories, but Roadside could. A taping was then set up with the women and staff. Donna put it together. Roadside asked the folks involved to write something down and bring it to the story circle. To this source material Roadside added a couple of traditional mountain stories.

This was then edited and sculpted into a work that involved members of Roadside, two Hope House staff, and two of the women themselves. The presentation was structured in the following way:

1. Two women told the audience their personal stories.

2. The play was presented.

3. There was a break, with some food.

4. Roadside led story circles with the audience.

Janie Funk reports, "It really touched people. People heard and saw this in a new light. The biggest impact on these women was the fact that a theater group would want to do their stories. It was also clear from this work that it takes the entire community to solve this problem – a great message that we (Hope House) have been trying to get across for some time. And the staff is now totally convinced of its value."

A Virginia court judge responded after seeing the work, "I’ve often considered these women’s complaints trivial. I didn’t understand how it (domestic violence) starts and how it escalates. I’ll have to be more careful weeding out the trivial from the substantial." How do we know this?

The performance was done for the public and staff of some social-service agencies, and was then invited to play at a Virginia state conference of judges, family councilors, police and welfare-department workers. At this conference, people were "blown away" because the work allowed them to experience what was going on in their community and in their work in a new way. The work is still being done. Roadside believes it could be done anywhere, so universal is the material, and so effective the presentation structure The process took one year, from idea to performance. It was funded by $10,000 from a small Virginia family foundation. There was also an effort to help the Hope House staff understand that $10,000 doesn’t necessarily go a long way in putting together a theater work. Roadside is being called upon more and more to work with social-service agencies and nonarts groups. Funding this kind of work for greatest impact is an issue, as is convincing agencies of the human cost of creating and touring such work. But all of the participants are convinced of the strong value of this work.

Michael Fields is a founding member of the Dell'Arte Company where he acts, directs, teaches, creates plays, manages all company business and oversees development. He is the producing director of the Dell’Arte Mad River Festival. He is also the director of the California State Summer School for the Arts Theatre Program and resident director with Het Vervolg Theatre of Holland. Fields has taught at the American Conservatory Theatre, the California Institute for the Arts, the Dutch National Theatre School and the Danish Dramaturgs Institute. He has directed numerous productions nationally and internationally. He received 1984 and 1986 Drama-logue awards and a 1984 S.F. Bay Area Critics Circle award. He holds a BA in Communication Arts from the University of San Francisco and an MFA in Directing from Humboldt State University. Fields is on the board of directors of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) in New York, he is a member of the James Irvine Foundation California Arts Leadership Forum, and has served as a National Endowment for the Arts panelist.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
Commentaries