On 25 August 2016, Dr Esther CHOW, Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, hosted “Narrating Faith, Love, Hope: Playback Performance Part II” with great success. Ms Mercy LIU, an experienced playback theatre trainer and practitioner, was invited to train 13 students in the Bachelor of Social Sciences in Social Work (BSSSW) programme to serve the community through this event. More than 30 community collaborators and 150 chronic illness survivors and their caretakers participated in the programme, and eight stories were enacted on stage.
As the names suggests, narrative theatre narrates the stories told by the audience. Performers would then improvise their work on the stage. “She really acted like me!” an audience member exclaimed and was excited to see “herself” in the play. Another audience member shared his experience on a hiking trip, “I thought I could jump over it but in the end I sprained my ankle and it hurt so much! Luckily my friends were there to support me.” Later he was delighted to see that the actors played out his story on the spot.
Playback theatre focuses on sharing and exchanging the emotions of individuals. It can facilitate communication, explore connections and embody acceptance and mutual respect among the participants. During the theatre training, BSSSW students had the opportunity to use component theatrical forms and create their performances without a script. Four students were selected to perform on stage with the professional actors. “Playback theatre allows me to understand more about myself as well as others,” one of our BSSSW students, LAU Hoi-man, said. Other students agreed that they had discovered different aspects of themselves, and had sharpened their listening and collaborative skills through the training. They remarked that they could feel the connections between themselves as performers and the participating audience as story-tellers. The emotional resonance encouraged them to appreciate hardship and to celebrate life at its different stages.
“We hope that when chronic illness survivors share their stories of hardship, our students’ improvisation serves as a gift to pay respect to their preferred identities that were embedded.” said Dr Chow. Playback theatre not only enables the participating audience to affirm their values and beliefs, it also allows them to reflect on the meaning of life and their life wisdom.
Cover photo: Through playback theatre, students can feel the connections between themselves as performers and the participating audience as story-tellers.
Photo 2: Congratulations to our BSSSW students who completed the playback theatre training.
