Methods for Social Change by Andreea-Loredana Tudorache - HTML preview

Important advice for a Joker

• Terminology, words, sentences used need to be adapted to the public profile in terms of level of understanding, language, dialect etc. It should always be as simple and as clear as possible to avoid misunderstandings and it is recommended for a Joker to put themselves in the shoes of the public and to make it as easy to follow the process as possible. It is preferable not to use terms such as oppression, oppressed, oppressor, etc., these are abstract terms and probably new concepts for most of the public members anyway and it would put an extra mental task for them to work with a new concept and to follow the process at the same time. It is better to focus on the concrete expression of that oppression: discrimination, or domestic violence, etc. than to introduce a new concept and risk confusion.
• It is good to repeat what public members say so as to make sure everybody hears them and also to keep the focus. If discussions go on for long and in many directions it is also good to make summaries of what has been discussed so far from time to time.
• If a member of public starts explaining what they will do on stage they need to be stopped and encouraged to show their idea rather than talk about it. It is important to reinforce these aspects and to set the right tone in this regard – once you allow some people to talk extensively about their ideas, it encourages more and more public members to do that and not to come on the stage.
• Do not praise solutions: “Wonderful! Perfect Idea! etc.” Even if you think this is rather an encouragement, in fact it gives the impression that there are right or wrong solutions. The same applies for the public – you need to encourage the public to assess the impact produced by a certain intervention and not to let the public start judging each other’s performance but rather to argue, based on reality, why a certain approach changes or not something in that specific situation.
• Try as much as possible to be natural and not to force yourself to be somebody different – the public has a high capacity of feeling and sensing the energy you send around and they will be more cooperative and open if you are relaxed and natural and not tense to prove yourself to be somebody.
• Trust the method and the process– do not rush with conclusions about what is happening with a certain public – each public has its own pace and if, for example, you panic that they will not find a solution it won’t make them find a solution. Forget about being a perfect Joker from the beginning- every Joker in the field learned from experience how to deal with certain challenging aspects and is in constant training because of that.

The main challenging aspects for a Joker (especially a beginner) which will be mostly worked through experience and practice but also with self-awareness and constant auto-evaluation:

Problematic Forum Theatre Play – if the play has pitfalls and mistakes in the construction it will heavily affect the work of the Joker. If there are more problems reflected, it looks like there are more oppressors than one (because there are too many strong people, if the oppressed doesn’t look powerless, if is not clear what is happening from one scene to another, if the actors talk very low etc.). The Joker needs to compensate them in working with the public, the questions addressed and the direction of the discussion – but some of them will for sure affect the whole process.

Ego factor (of the team or of the Joker) - which can be reflected in a team that doesn’t follow the instructions of the Joker (they don’t change their roles based on what the public says, don’t reduce their oppression because they think it is not realistic, etc.) and generally that is not working well together. If there is no trust among the team members the public will also feel it and it will affect their involvement. The Ego of the Joker can be a problem if it becomes more important than the aim for which they are doing their performance (they shouldn’t make any mistakes, they have all the right answers, they should be funny, popular, charismatic, etc.) Asking the right questions (hopefully the guidelines introduced before will help in this regard)

Maintaining their neutrality, especially when they are personally concerned and interested in the topic tackled in the performance and when their ego is strong.

High expectations – especially for a beginner Joker, expectations are high and sometimes too specific and concrete in terms of how it should happen. Depending on how the Joker copes with unfulfilled expectations, they can be reflected or not in losing neutrality, being aggressive, rushing the process; The expectations of the team can also create difficulties for the Joker;

Keeping their calm and cool- very often the Joker panics when people don’t talk right away, don’t reply immediately to their questions, don’t clap, don’t raise their hands and start talking more, adding more and more questions, going on a problematic road. On the other hand (based on the same reason) they can get overexcited when people have opinions and ideas and let everybody talk and come on the stage. They lose control of the process, as they don’t want to risk stopping the public from doing so.

Following the structure –once you have skipped a step it creates problems for the following stages and until a Joker gets more experience it often happens that they either cover some steps too superficially or totally pass some over.

To create a safe environment- especially if you go to a public that is affected by the problem exposed and it is very personal to them the Joker needs to be very careful to make the public feel secure to be open, to talk about their lives and their views. The Joker needs to pay attention as well to the reaction of other public members and how they handle what is happening in the room. It is recommended for a beginner not to work with very sensitive topics for the target group as it can lead to reactions that they might not know how to cope with as a first time Joker.

Managing time- very often in Forum Theatre Performances many people want to share their opinions and the discussions are long and going on many levels. This takes time and it’s really not easy to estimate how long it will take. Beginner Jokers often don’t want to stop or rush the discussions (even if they went on for enough time) as they don’t want to disrupt the public or they don’t know how to do that in a gentle way.