Mutuality

Okay, so I've talked before about Opera Piccola's interactive folk tales for multigenerational audiences, and how amazing those experiences are for us actors. This past Friday we performed our African tale, "The Stolen Aroma," for two different Oakland groups: a school for troubled children and a family homeless shelter. This is a show created for our company, with text by Oakland's own Beverly Jarrett and jazz composer Wes Riley.

There's no way to tell who had more fun-- Gift Harris and I (the performers) or the fifteen children who played the roles of the Cooks and the Elders. You might expect that children needing a special school, or homeless children, might not be the best choice to improvise complex audience volunteer roles without any preparation other than, "help the puppy," or "do what Imo says."

Wrong!

Both groups of 4 to 8 year old volunteers were the best that I can remember -- and we've done over a hundred performances of this piece. The children zapped totally into being their charcters at once, and stayed there (some continued enacting multiple characters from the story afterwards while we were packing up; one 8 year old Cook suddenly talking to me in a perfect African accent that he had not had before the show). It's hard to describe the thrill of playing a scene with a child who stuns me with some new angle to the story with his/her improvisation.

"Don't go over there, I'm warning you," said one 6 year old Elder wisely to my character (Slough Dog). "Yes, I've been lost in the desert, and I was soooo scared," sympathized another Elder when asked. "No, you can't share the food," said one loyal 5 year old Cook, determined to be Employee of the Year to the rich, greedy Imo. "Even though Imo isn't coming back? I haven't had anything to eat in five days!" "Well, okay, but just one piece."

Adult actors study for years to achieve this magical melding of self and character in order to be faithful to a powerful story. Actor's Workshop, you should have been there at the group home and the shelter on Friday. I left floating on a cloud. "The children loved it," the Case Manager said as we left. They weren't the only ones.