Brenny Rabine, actor, writer, improviser, trainer and new WAM Theatre board member, wrote the following blog about her experience being part of WAM’s first event, ‘A WAM Welcome’ in April 2010.
The short play, THE LAST STANDING PROTESTER, finds a woman standing in protest without picket signs, without slogans, and without anthems. During the course of the play, she invites the audience to tell her what “hauls them under with despair.” Her mission is to carry whatever it is–from endangered marine life to cell phones–for them on her protest. She faces down oncoming tanks and fighter planes. In the last moments of the play, the audience finds her collapsed in exhaustion, struggling to stand, her outstretched hand toward them, as she asks from the floor, “Would you please help me up?”
As part of WAM’s inaugural production, “A WAM Welcome,” I was honored by the opportunity to work with Kristen van Ginhoven on THE LAST STANDING PROTESTER by Lydia Stryk. Our production benefitted Women for Women International, and I walked away feeling like I’d won the lottery. The piece stretched me as an actor and recharged my sense of responsibility. Kristen inspired me with her intelligence, kindness, talent, and commitment to WAM.
I still consider what this play taught me about speaking up.
The eponymous protester cajoles the audience, begs them, pities them, demands them to tell her what hauls them under with despair. Kristen and I considered her tactics and her motives. Each question we asked begged another. Who protests today? Where? Why? How does this woman expect to make an impact by merely standing? What compels a person to stand for EVERYTHING? We wanted our audience to respond (actively!) to us, to offer their despair, in fact. We considered how I might improvise with anything the audience offered.
Kristen was clear, explaining that this character was not “crazy,” even though we had a hard time wrestling with her willingness to (literally) sacrifice herself in her mission. “We can’t make her crazy,” Kristen directed. “She is really asking, and she could be any one us.”
My friend Rachel saw the play, and she asked me (and I think this is verbatim), “Was your character supposed to be crazy? ‘Cause I didn’t think she really was crazy, even though she was doing this crazy thing, asking strangers for their despair.” I considered Rachel’s observation a rave review, of sorts. I’d accomplished Kristen’s direction, and Kristen was right. “Crazy” is too easy to dismiss, and we respected the protester’s demand that we all, at the very least, bring our despair to consciousness.
No matter how earnestly I sought the audience’s input, no one uttered a word during any of the performances. Rachel admitted to me that she wanted to say something. She squirmed, asking herself, “Am I supposed to speak up?” The more I asked her to tell me, the more uncomfortable she felt by not answering. Rachel admitted, “I even knew what I would say! I just didn’t know if I really should.” (Or, as I heard her to be saying, Brava!)
The play continues to give me both permission to speak up (if I needed it) and the responsibility to speak up (as the world needs it). Thank you, thank you, Kristen, for welcoming me to WAM.
WAM is thrilled to welcome Brenny to our board. For more information on Brenny’s work as a performer, go to http://www.brennyrabine.com/wb/