“I want you to write a story about CU Boulder’s Impact Playback Theatre Ensemble (Playback) from the perspective of an audience member,” my supervisor exclaimed to me one day during work.
She went on to explain that, in short, it’s an interactive, improvised theatre production where performers “play back” emotions, experiences and stories shared by audience members.
Interactive? Sharing emotions? As an introvert, those can be words that warrant an automatic decline when describing a social event. Despite this, I accepted the assignment. What was I getting myself into?
Oftentimes, getting out of your comfort zone can lead to amazing things. I had a feeling this was going to be one of those things.
Walking into the performance space the first thing that struck me was the noise: a bundle of musicians picked and prodded at their instruments, and across the room performers stretched their bodies while exchanging chit-chat. It was a delightful hum that, despite all happening separately, felt cohesive. A bit of foreshadowing.
As I took my seat alongside other audience members, the performance moderator, James Walker, thanked us for coming and opened up the program. To break the ice, the performers did an introductory exercise. Each said their name and something on their mind, and the next performer began acting out the experience just described before finishing with their own name and something that’s been on their mind. So on, so forth. There was a comical grandiosity to the performances, an exaggeration of facial expressions and movement. With introductions made and everyone present warmed up, the performance began.
Part I: Fluid Sculptures
James started by asking audience members to share a current and prominent feeling in their life. I and the rest of the audience exchange the classic “are you going to talk first?” raised-eyebrow, darting glances. To my surprise, I found myself responding first.
Me: I’ve been struggling with a bad bout of insomnia. I’m exhausted during the day, but when I try to fall asleep at night, I’m wide awake.
James: Where in your body are you holding that emotion?
Hmm. Where is it? Everywhere? I let my focus leave my brain and float down my spine, out into my arms, searching for the abnormality.
Me: In my chest and behind my eyes.
I don’t really know if I mean it, but the simple question forces me to dig deeper into the feeling, look directly at it rather than glance from the safety of my periphery.
James then asked me to describe the emotion.
It feels bad, I think. But what does “bad” really mean? Again, I let my focus travel inward. I discover my sleepiness feels fuzzy, scratchy. Like I’m swimming in television static. I share this with everyone.
James took a step back, and a group of performers positioned themselves in a cluster. All at once, they were twisting and contorting. The musicians erupted into a cacophony. A performer held their eyelids open to mimic my drowsiness. Another,close to the ground, mimed a tossing and turning motion. Each performer narrated their chosen piece of my experience, in what appeared to be a growing breathing glob.
James asked how I felt about the sculpture.
Me: Honestly, it was kind of haunting.
We all shared a laugh. I realized that, for the first time that day, I was making light of something that felt like a burden.
As other audience members shared their own experiences and the performers played those emotions back tenfold, I started to feel us all relaxing into a sort of ridiculousness.
Was it all a little weird? Sure? But was it fun? Yes!
Part II: Pairs
In this section, audience members were asked to reflect on an experience that inflicted opposing feelings. Performers then split into pairs, one emotion per person, and acted out the feelings.
An audience member shared that while he was deeply proud of a huge project about to launch, he also felt like it wasn’t good enough. Another person, a professor, described how they were so proud to work with most of their students but felt consumed by anger and disappointment brought about by the few students who weren’t putting in the effort they should.
Although the performances of each emotion were silly and over-the-top, I sensed the process was validating for people. It wasn’t about which emotion was right or wrong; it was about how they both existed together, despite their contradictions. As someone who’s fallen into black-and-white thinking patterns for much of my life, I especially appreciated this part of the evening.
Part III: Stories
The final section of the performance was the heart. Members of the audience were asked to think of an important story in their life, give it an interesting title and share it with a fellow audience member. Then, James asked if anyone wanted to share the name of their story or the name of the story they heard from their partner. Finally, one audience member agreed to share their story in full.
The story was titled “I Love My Best Friend, But She Has To Go.” It chronicled the lifelong friendship of two women—the audience member, who we’ll call Erin, and her best friend, who we’ll call Jamie. Their friendship, spanning many years and a host to experiences and challenges, found the friends at last living in the same state. However, living so far away from her husband took a toll on Jamie; although it pained her, Erin realized she had to tell Jamie she should move back with him.
During the performance, I noticed that the comical grandiosity I mentioned earlier was no longer present. The actors took a more serious, restrained approach. Again, I was in awe that this was accomplished through improvisation. It was as if an invisible string tied the actors together, and each performer and musician could feel the pull and respond accordingly. Bright, shining tones amplified the happy parts of Jamie and Erin’s friendship, while moodier, duller notes pulled you into the weight of their somber moments. Everything operated as a seamless unit. I felt sure that a connection so strong could only come from a commitment to the craft—hours of practice forming genuine relationships with fellow cast members.
I found myself sneaking glimpses at Erin’s reactions, studying how her features moved as she watched years of friendship collapse into mere minutes. Emotion washed over her, and it washed over me. I was reminded of my own best friend. As the performance scene closed and the two characters embraced on stage, heartbroken but knowing their separation was for the best, I teared up. It was in that moment that I felt it—the tug of the invisible string that connected me to Erin, and Erin to another audience member and so on and so forth.
When our stories were played back, it wasn’t just to us. It was to everyone. Something that felt so individual became shared. The weight of it, the importance of it, the meaning of it all was held and known by everyone in the room—from the smallest things, like a bout of insomnia, to the big things, like the heartbreak of letting something you love go.
After the dress rehearsal concluded, I stopped James on my way out to tell them how much the performance affected me, especially Erin’s story, and how I felt connected to the people in the room.
James told me something I will never forget: “The closest distance between two people is a story.”
The Critical Conversations Project: Playback Theatre in Rural Colorado is funded in part by the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship.
Note: All quotations are paraphrased based on written notes and memory. These are used to capture the flow of the experience and create narrative. Any misrepresentations are not intentional.
Photo credit: Michael Ensminger