Regaining the Circle by Leaving the Box Behind: An Award-Winning Essay

 

(VSA Wordsmith Contest winner, read by members of the Unlimited Potential Theatre Company at the Stephen J. Capestro Theater in Edison, NJ, January 10, 2004)

Things are bad. Just about everyone says it. The economy’s bad. The government’s bad. There are additives in food and subtractions in the wallet. Lifelong learning is the in thing but no one wants to teach. The arts budgets of many states were recently cut, but they’re supposed to be creative and “do more with less.” War is bad but peace is worse. Your freedoms are bad because they make you vulnerable, so the government’s going to reduce them in order to protect them.

That’s like giving away your cash so you don’t have to spend as much time counting it. Frees you up to pursue all those other freedoms you used to have. Sure.

People look tense. They’re unfriendly and territorial, and that wasn’t always the case. Take, for instance, the nice old lady at the grocery store who thinks you look like her grandchild, but lately you get the sense she’s thinking that’s a bad thing. Or the guy who used to cut you off on the highway and then took the time—while driving, loading a CD, and talking on the phone—to give an apologetic wave. Now he dials #77 to report you as an aggressive driver for lightly tapping your horn.

People are unhappy. They don’t seem to smile as much. No one’s having fun.

Then there’s the lost art of conversation and its corporate-adopted brother, communication. Meetings and memos are fine, but no one has time to talk about silly, everyday things—“Geez, I’m busy,” they say. Busy means successful, productive, and on-the-rise. Busy is the barometer for Who We Are and What We’ve Done.

It also keeps us from thinking how we’d trade it all in for a rowboat and an old Ford with which to pull her to the lake.

But there are ways to get a little perspective that aren’t nearly so dramatic, at least in the literal sense. I was recently watching the movie Armageddon. It’s Shakespeare, Homer’s Odyssey, and Godzilla movies all rolled into a modern, action-packed package. There are prototypical heroes and refreshingly new antiheroes, who are infinitely more interesting to watch, just like Tolkien’s Hobbits. Superman ought to save the world, but some dude who works on an oil rig? Talk about thinking outside the box!

And that box is another thing…when did the circle of life—the medicine wheel, the Celtic image of the snake eating itself, the model for wedding bands, the natural shape of Infinity—get retooled, reformed, pounded, hammered, and cyber-morphed into a box? I think it’s time to take back the circle and leave that box behind.

“Wait a minute,” you say, “I hardly have time to talk to my spouse—you want me to not only think outside the box, but leave it totally behind? Sounds great, but who has the energy for that?” Apparently, the Get Healthy Fast movement. Just think about the Energy Boosters hawked by beautifully crafted human specimens on TV infomercials in the form of powders, pills, and bars.

But there is a better way to get a new perspective, boost your creative and physical energy, and find a way to beat the Box.

It comes in the form of kids, and the way they play. 

You know—those miniature humans we often treat like they don’t know much at all? I’m lucky enough to work with kids for a living. I’m a theatre teacher, actor, and playwright, so when I say work, I really mean “play for pay,” so in that respect I’m incredibly blessed. Plus, I have three kids of my own.

Kids know a lot. Trust me on this.

They are very closely connected to things, with an honesty that doesn’t reside so much in a human morality sphere as a Universal one. Children at play have an abundance of creativity and camaraderie. They’re natural storytellers and improvisers—the shamans of our tribe. They can make the most mundane space instantly fantastical, a scrap of cloth into a ball gown, or a discarded gadget you bought on late night TV and used once into a scepter or magic wand. Get a group of kids together, leave them alone, and they’ll soon begin a grand adventure. Their freedom of imagination is inspiring. They don’t worry about the mechanics of their play; it moves forward of its own energy and they adapt with it.  They never run out of ideas or dialogue, or the raw material from which to create dramatic conflict, and more important for us, how to resolve the conflict. They’ll work together to set the parameters of a story, and to move it along with urgency and enthusiasm. Should one of them do something that’s unfaithful to the story or give a character powers it didn’t have at the start, there’s a cry of  “That isn’t supposed to happen!” or “Hey—that guy can’t shoot fire out of his eyes!” and after a little negotiation everything is fine.

You see, adults are great at working, but kids know how to play. 

Something changes, however, when you bring those same kids together for an improvisational theatre class or other-directed play. In other words, putting them back in the box and under the judging eyes and uncertain expectations that have often prevented an enjoyable learning experience in our schools. Participants in workshops and other  special gatherings sit in a circle—just like a Native American pow-wow or a table for Arthur’s knights—but most classrooms are arranged like a box, with teacher in front and rows of desks like a checkerboard down the room. The formality kills the passion. These same energetic, imaginative, and resourceful kids become unenthusiastic, uncertain, and almost paralyzed by a lack of ideas. What little dialogue and action they are able to generate during a theatre exercise comes out stilted and flat, and they can’t wait for the facilitator to end it. Even if it starts out strong, the scene often disintegrates into slapstick and chaos, and when that gets old, near silence, followed by a collective resignation to “just get it over with.”

Sounds a lot like our current foreign policy.

So what happens in the transition from free to formal play, and how can we use that knowledge to beat the Box?

Several things. First, there is the “performance anxiety” that comes with being observed (and, inherent in that, judged), which is understandable—look what it’s done to your average adult in the age of corporate downsizing, computer supremacy, and a “surpassing the Joneses” mentality that has people leveraged and feeling stressed.

Next, I’ve noticed that the simple storylines of free play become incredibly complicated when kids are in the box; their need to please and show how clever they are begins to trigger random events that have little or nothing to do with how the improvisation began. Sensing the complication, they begin to overcompensate; to have their characters give in to the deteriorating sense of their circumstances, which leads to more random action and disconnected dialogue until it finally falls apart.

Then there’s the doubt that comes with trying to work within the rules and parameters imposed by an outsider; that is, the nonparticipating facilitator. 

If you consider the fact that our politicians are predominantly millionaires who rarely have to deal with the ramifications of their decisions and proscriptions for us, you’ll agree that what they really are are nonparticipating facilitators. No wonder our creativity has ebbed.

 Last, the big difference between informal and formal play (that is, between the circle and the box) is about Outcome—the need for a formal end. During informal play, no one worries about how it’s going to end—it naturally plays out, the children get bored, or else an ending is imposed from the outside, whether it be from the end of the scheduled play period or that great show-ender, “Dinner’s ready!” In the formal world, including the theatre, this is not allowed. Because audiences (or corporations, or bosses) are investing time and money, they expect an ending that will fulfill the expectation of a payoff; a quantifiable reason for having made the effort. 

Applying all of this to our own lives and current world circumstances, it’s easy to see why things are bad and no one’s having fun. 

Being in the box of judgment and expectation just doesn’t work.

Boxes have sharp corners. When you’re outside them, you can’t see around. You can paint yourself into, or even worse, be backed into one. Children who do badly in school or at home are sometimes told to stand in them.

I think we’d all benefit from gently moving the box back into a circle. Living life with less expectation and judgment is a decent place to start. Don’t worry so much about how things will end; all the spiritual texts throughout history all agree on one idea—if you do what you do with love, simplicity, and the energy of good will, the outcome will be as it should.

And if you’re really lucky, it’ll end with a warm shout of “Dinner’s ready!” and friendly faces with which to share it.