Jessica Blank is author (with Erik Jensen) of The Exonerated, a play based on interviews with wrongfully convicted death row inmates (Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation, Fringe First, Herald Angel awards); they also adapted the film starring Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover. Their play Aftermath, based on interviews with Iraqi civilian refugees, ran at New York Theatre Workshop, toured internationally, and garnered two Drama League award nominations. Their new play, How to be a Rock Critic, will be at LA’s Center Theatre Group and South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa next season. Blank is among the artist/activists participating in a panel discussion at WAM Theatre’s upcoming anniversary benefit event, CHANGE MAKERS, on August 24. Here is how she creates change…
Can you talk about a time when you experienced or participated in positive change being made through the arts?
When “The Exonerated” was running Off-Broadway, Governor George Ryan began publicly considering granting clemency to all 153 inmates then on Illinois death row–commuting their sentences to life in prison—based on overwhelming evidence that there was an epidemic of wrongful conviction in the Illinois justice system. There was an enormous controversy over the potential blanket clemency, and Governor Ryan worked tirelessly to listen to both sides as he weighed his decision; he held hearings on all the cases, spoke to hundreds of experts from law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and people personally affected on all sides of the issue. As part of his decision-making process, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University brought the Off-Broadway production of “The Exonerated” to Chicago for a single night, to be performed before the Governor, several members of the Illinois State Legislature, and over fifty exonerated death row inmates. The Governor watched the play and stayed long after the performance, deep in conversation with the death row exonerees who had been in the audience with him. A few months later, he announced his decision to commute the sentences of every inmate on Illinois’ death row to life in prison. We would never take credit for that decision—Governor Ryan talked with many, many experts far more knowledgeable than us during the months he was considering clemency-—but several people close to the Governor and that decision have told us that he was deeply affected by the stories in the play and that the evening was a turning point for him. We are honored to have been a part of that conversation, and inspired by the fact that it was possible for a work of theater to be a factor in a decision-making process that literally saved lives.
What advice would you give to women who are just starting to establish themselves in their artistic careers and looking to create positive change?
If they work in narrative forms, I would tell them that the most important thing they can do is to learn to tell a story skillfully. I’m a firm believer that “political” theater that focuses on ideology and politics is often not so effective in creating social change—because it only appeals to the people who already agree with the ideology the author is talking about. I’m not a fan of work that tells the audience what to think or believe, no matter how much I might agree with the author, because I’m not interested in “political” art that preaches to the choir. But personal stories—well-told—can appeal to and move people from all over the ideological spectrum.
Storytelling is at its heart an empathic process—we walk in the shoes of the protagonist as we experience his or her story. The question of who you are asking your audience to identify with is a political choice, and I believe storytelling has tremendous potential to create social change if we ask audiences to identify with people who are too often considered “other.” Once you’ve made that choice, as a storyteller, your job is to get out of the way and tell your character’s story as skillfully as you possibly can. And the more skillfully you can craft the story, the more impact the work will have.
How do you see the arts moving people to take action?
Narrative art (theater, fiction, film, TV) has at its core the empathic process. If you don’t feel you’ve walked in the main character’s shoes and gone on a journey with them, it’s not a good night at the theater! This process is necessary for the survival of our species. The world is suffering from a deficit of empathy. We all get caught up in our lives and our identities and forget that strangers, those who seem to live a world apart, those whose life circumstances are dramatically different from our own, are at the deepest, most basic human level, just like us.
Violence and war are only possible when we see the other as different from our self. If we recognize that our basic drives, needs, hungers and loves are shared across the spectrum of human experience, it becomes much more difficult to harm others, or to consent to the harming of others. Stories reawaken us to this truth by bridging the gap between ourselves and others. Even if the “other” is a fictional character, we are still experiencing the empathic process every time we engage with a story. And that’s something we hunger for spiritually, whether we are aware of it or not. It’s why we read books, watch TV, go to the movies and the theater. That’s something that all of us—and especially storytellers (and the institutions that fund and support the telling of those stories) should remember, because the question of who we are empathizing with, whose shoes we practice walking in, winds up shaping our world.
Reserve your place now for WAM Theatre’s CHANGE MAKERS benefit on Sunday, August 24th at 7:00 pm.