“That’s more like it,” is what I could
say after visiting the “Lace Up Against Bullying” troupe at Li-Ming Middle School, Dali, Taiwan on October 24, 2019. Sunny, who I've worked with on Readers' Theaters the past few years, was there to met us at the gate. She brought us up to the rehearsal
room where two colleagues producing this year’s skit, were busy rehearsing with the troupe of seven girls and a boy. They asked me for and I offered them pizzazz
for their production. My mind was racing even as we rode up the elevator, but I
held back and didn’t offer suggestions until they asked me. After Tuesday’s
foot in the mouth by saying too much about another school’s script, I was being
conservative, though I knew Sunny’s team had open minds and were not afraid of
criticism.
Read about Li-Ming in last year's "Rush of Rehearsals"
I signaled my intention immediately
upon meeting the students and staff and being seated with strong black coffee
and cake; I wanted to know why they had chosen shoe laces as the motif against
bullying and why the laces were purple and orange, but then, I sat back and
asked to watch the troupe perform so I could hear their pronunciation and
intonation and see their body language. After
a few minor suggestions, I asked the director man what he would like. He said
the script was too plain and had no power at the end. I played for him the song
I was singing on my way up the elevator: “Free Your Mind” by En Vogue, the 1992
hip-hop rock hit. The song is about prejudice, the heart of bullying. It is a
fight-back anthem, and perfect to make their theme more poignant. I injected,
at three junctures in the script, a character or narrator singing, “Why oh why
must it be this way?” and ended the script with the troupe singing: “Before you
can read me you have to learn how to see me, I said, free your mind and the
rest will follow, be color-blind, don’t be so shallow, free your
mind-mind-mind-mind mind-mind thump.”
I
wondered why they used laces for solidarity with the victim (she was bullied
because of wearing one purple and one shoe lace; not very realistic) as symbols
against bullying when it was too small to be seen and didn’t make a statement.
Wear long rainbow socks, I said, and make a stand against the major cause of
bullying; one’s sexual orientation. The socks could be rolled down by all
except the victim through the performance and then rolled up and exposed to
show solidarity and confront the bully. The director thought that was a good
idea. The title should be “Dressing Up Against Bullies” or “Socking It to
Bullies” if they get the idiom. What is left to do is add pantomime and body
language; they must express what they say physically. I was gladdened when I
was invited back this Thursday to see how much progress they had made and to
give more advice. Not much has to be changed in the script but some children
are cast incorrectly. For example, the shortest meek girl, who has very few
lines to begin with, should be the victim of bullying instead of the tall more
assertive girl. Also, they can’t have the bus driver playing two opposite
roles. With the topical theme, good pronunciation, intonation, and musical
interlude and finale, they could win after all, but they have a ways to go;
they should have contacted me sooner.
After my my revisions to their script, Li-Ming won third place in their division in Taichung! I had lost two opportunities to be instrumental in
readers’ theater outcomes; my baby, “The Wizard of Oz”, wasn’t put into my
hands sooner, either, but the school didn't request any more assistance from me, unlike Li-Ming. The third troupe Id' seen, burdened with arrogant direction and
oblivious to my concerns, had no spirit from within and lost, as did the
silly “What is Love”, but they didn't expect to win, anyway; it is the English experience that matters most.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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