Loved as a child

How many of us don't have a chance to be children? Many take care of parents, or take care of themselves in the absence of parents, then move on to take care of their children, jobs, spouses, and on. The co dependence theory warns the "caretaker" to take care of him/her self, while religion teaches us to give ourselves away in the service of others. But when my life falls apart, a little voice inside me says, "Mama! I want my Mama."

I saw a movie called "Wit" this week. Screenplay by Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols. I had expected it to be some sort of witty comedy, but instead was thrust into the all too familiar world of death forcing us to face our lives. Ms. Thompson, the main character, slowly dies of cancer throughout the film. I was profoundly affected, permitted to mourn, but inexplicably inspired to be present with my mother, age 94, because her health is declining. But what does this have to do with my Artistic Director work?

This week I wanted to provide my high school drama students with a different experience in the process of creating their original script on their chosen theme of "relationships." I brought in a big bag of stuffed animals, and a few actual puppets, for them to create puppet skits about relationships. When I opened the bag, the energy of the 16 and 17 year olds in the room took a quantum leap. One boy yelled, "a monkey, and it's purple!" He seized the soft brightly colored toy and ran to a chair where he sat cradling it like a baby in his arms-- he was serious, this was his baby. Another boy rushed to hold a plush gray and white dog with longish fur dripping into its eyes. He held it tenderly on his shoulder. "It's mine," he called. (Someone saying "I want the doggie" was trying to take the dog from him.) "I have to have this one," called another boy who has a bright red stripe on his brown hair, as he pulled out a lion puppet with a bright red tufty mane on top of its brown head.

And so it went. A girl who had picked a little white bunny with floppy pink ears held it the entire class time. She couldn't stop making it bop up and down, talking to the other toy animals. Also to my surprise, everyone wanted to be invisible behind the puppets, so they pulled a table on its side and squeezed their grown up bodies behind it, holding the toys over the edge.

The puppet skits were real, authentic, poignant and made us laugh our heads off, in spite of everything. They featured teddy bears that cheated on their girlfriends or boyfriends, bunnies and puppies that tried to peer pressure a kitty into smoking weed-- but the kitty went to college instead-- a little pregnant bear that kept throwing up, and a group of animals that ended a punching fight with excellent conflict resolution techniques.

Back to the movie. At the end of "Wit," as Emma Thompson lay dying in the hospital, in intense pain, her only visitor entered her room-- a former poetry teacher. The teacher took off her shoes, lay down next to Thompson, cradled her head on her chest and read aloud to her the children's book, "The Runaway Bunny." Thompson's character quieted, slept and passed on.

At the end of the puppet class, I asked students what they'd noticed about what we did that day. The boy who had cradled the monkey the whole time said, "I guess we like to laugh." For all of us, it was more than that, just as the teacher's cradling of the dying Ms Thompson was more than that. Something inside of us needs to be held and loved as a little baby, just as the students held and loved the plush toys. Something inside of those students needed to play and be children again. And they had the courage to do just that.