Theatre and Trauma

A tonic, a healing balm, sacred medicine

I majored in theatre in college. When I first started Marietta, I was incredibly convicted that that was what I was meant to do with my life. I loved it and I did so many plays, I burned myself out.

I learned a lot about the actor method that focuses entirely on inner monologue to drive motivations, from the one acting professor we had there. I learned a lot, but I also learned my limitations and I felt for a long time that this was why I gave up the pursuit of theatre, either professionally or recreationally/for fun.

But the truth is, my love of theatre started much earlier, in high school. I joined an acting troupe, Awareness Theatre, a program of the Chautauqua Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Council. It was my mother that urged me to be a part of this community. I am oh so very glad that she did.

Being a part of this group helped me to do a lot of acting, rather than the one play a year that my high school would allow. But it also provided me with education on the issues that were plaguing my family and home life. It gave me a group of similarly situated friends, some of whom were from different high schools. (When you grow up in an incredibly rural community, and a socioeconomically disadvantaged one, at that, this is a privilege to get to meet and encounter new folks. Part of the reason why I was so desperate to leave southwestern NY state for college, the desperate desire to new people.)

We were taught about various important topics (date rape, alcohol abuse and alcoholism, other drug addition, depression and suicide, bullying, self esteem and self worth, etc) and then performed various forms of theatre to educate and mediate about these issues. Sometimes it was for our peers, or older folks and adults, other times younger ones. We performed at colleges, elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.

I knew I loved performing/acting. But what really captured me and forever changed my life were the relationships that I made. I still am in contact with these folks. I know that “AT” holds a special place in their heart as it does mine.

But moreover, I now realize that I fell in love with theatre because of its therapeutic capabilities, as an art form to deal with life’s crap in your own family, to help others, and to provide community.

I fell in love with drama therapy, before I knew that there was such a thing.

I am glad for where I am in my life, as a Writing Director and English professor; I love writing just as much as theatre. At various points in my life, theatre would have far surpassed that, but these are my two art forms to cope with life and express myself. I am better at them than others, so it feels rewarding and something that I can do. (I can’t draw or paint worth a damn. Always amazed by those folks who can.)

But, in the path that life has taken me on, I have experienced and endeavored to learn a great deal about trauma. To better understand my lived, embodied experiences, and simply, physiologically, what the hell is happening to my body? As my brain changed and cortisol pumped at an alarmingly high rate through my system, common side effects of PTSD.

Dr. Bessel van de Kolk wrote the book, The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. In this book, he details his work in therapy and in getting PTSD to be recognized and named, for the psychiatric AND physiological condition that it is. He worked a lot with Vietnam War vets.

The book is an opus, for sure, with dense writing. I feel that I have been reading it for months. (I have).

But I have made my way through various forms of treatment and therapy. To now arrive at the “trauma and theatre” portion. It has provided me with language and understanding for why AT was so powerful and important, helpful and life-changing for me.

The following resonated:

“Theater gives trauma survivors a chance to connect with one another by deeply experiencing their common humanity.”

“Trauma is about trying to forget, hiding how scared, enraged, or helpless you are. Theatre is about finding ways of telling the truth and conveying deep truths to your audience. This requires pushing through blockages to discover your own truth, exploring and examining your own ruth, exploring and examining your own internal experiences so that it can emerge in your own voice and body on stage.”

“Traumatized people are terrified to feel deeply. They are afraid to experience their emotions, because emotions lead to loss of control. In contrast, theater is about embodying emotions, giving voice to them, becoming rhythmically engaged, taking on and embodying different roles…As we’ve seen, the essence of trauma is feeling godforesaken, cut off from the human race. Theater involves a collective confrontation with the realities of the human condition.”

(van de Kolk)

He also noted this, from Kevin Coleman, Director of Shakespeare in the Courts, which also rings very true from my experience:

“They [traumatized teenagers] don’t make extended eye contact in their normal lives, not even with a person they’re talking to. They don’t know if that person is safe or not. SO what you’re doing is making it safe or not. So what you’re doing is making it safe for them not to disappear when they make eye contact, or when someone looks at them. Bit by bit, by bit, by bit…”

All so very, very true.

I believe in the arts. I always have, to educate, to express, to entertain, to educate, to provide healthy outlets of creative, self-expression, for child development, for growth. To cope, as a therapy and healing, a tonic, to deal with this life’s shitstorms and hardships. Sometimes watching it does this, sometimes participating or performing in this does that.

Arts to mean any: dance, drawing, painting, sculpting, theater, writing in its various forms, and more.

But, while I always firmly believed in art’s potential, that art therapies of any of these, are some powerful shit, I never thought through the intricacies of how art provides sacred medicine for relief of traumatized peoples, for a myriad of different reasons.

To also note, because it also relates to the online trauma summit that I participated in yesterday—by “trauma” I mean any kind of trauma. Some make distinctions between capital “T” trauma versus lower case “T” trauma. Others PTSD versus traumatized.

I understand the need for such rhetoric, the language distinctions. But it is also important to recognize that we are all traumatized in so many varying degrees.

And, I’ve said it before, but will do so again, repeating the words I heard yesterday—trauma is an embodied experience, which is to say, within an individual and how it affects them. No one has the right to judge what constitutes an event or life that is “traumatic enough” to warrant the title or classification. That’s bullshit. Because what is trauma may not be for another, but it doesn’t make it trauma nonetheless.

I repeat this here, in the context of this post, because I was thinking about all of the troupe members that I did AT with…many of them were, like myself, from dysfunctional backgrounds. Many had alcoholic parents and experienced a range of types of abuse from them on a semi-regular basis. Some had been abandoned by parents. Some lived in crippling, debilitating poverty. Some were the children of hoarders. Some experienced mental illnesses and probably other conditions that were undiagnosed. Others were quirky, odd-ball, didn’t quite fit in.

Life is traumatic. Adolescence can be traumatic. We all had theatre to help us through.

It sounds like something simply relegated to childhood, but Kolk helped to frame the conversation in such a way to provide evidence that participating in theatre and in community with others, helped these Vietnam war vets, burdened with PTSD, to cope, to manage life. They improved, mentally, socially, lessened depression and addiction.

Theatre is powerful.