‘No’ Confusion Misunderstandings Are Sometimes Behind Date Rape; Skits Help Teens Practice Making Sure The Rules Are Crystal Clear
Act I
The Heavyweight Dating Scene
John’s “dating” coach is suave, real slick. He wears a towel around his neck and sports a pocket full of condoms.
Cathy’s coach is confusing. In priming Cathy for her big night out, she loads her up with mixed messages.
The advice from both coaches is bad, as students in three consecutive health classes soon learn on a recent day at Seattle’s Chief Sealth High School.
“John” and “Cathy” are headed full bore toward date rape. Their emotions fly with such realism that it takes little imagination for the front of the classroom to become a bedroom at a party.
“Get her to drink,” John’s adviser tells him before the party. “They all want what we want but they’ve got to get a little buzz on so they can relax and admit it. Remember, ‘No means yes.”’
Cathy’s coach tells her: “Let your hips sway. You want to say ‘No,’ but you want him to hear, ‘Maybe later.”’
The students can’t believe what they’re seeing. They laugh. They gasp. It’s not the date-rape illusion that’s so shocking. That’s cut short as soon as it’s clear what’s happening. It’s the language, the emotions, the back-seat lines that sound so uncomfortably familiar.
“It seems real,” said student Karma Johnson, 17. Real enough, adds another student, Kim Neumann, 16, that she hopes the message of the play sinks in: “No means no.”
About twice a year, whenever moderator Jan Maher can scare up the funding, the skits are performed for local students. They began, Maher tells the students, when New Beginnings Shelter for Battered Women and Their Children noticed calls were coming from younger and younger women.
The official title of the two-day performance is “New Options Theater Project: Interactive Workshops to Prevent Sexual Abuse and Violence in Relationships of Adolescents.”
Of all its messages, the most important may come from students, who get a chance to tell each other what makes a good relationship. There’s always one or two who answer “sex” to every question, but at almost every presentation, most students put higher priority on other values: friendship, understanding, fun, communication.
The actors seem to be credible to the students. They are relatively young, skilled and ethnically diverse. This is not Ann Landers talking. The actors use language in situations you’d probably not hear or see in church.
An additional punch is the interaction. All the scenes are improvised except the first party scene. They are shaped by the students, who provide personality traits for the characters, the setting and even the outcome.
“Who can come up here and give John better advice?” Maher asks after the opening date-rape scene.
The volunteer or volunteers replace the old coach, giving advice that the class has offered: “listen to her,” “watch her body language,” “when she says no, she means no.”
Armed with a new attitude, John goes off to replay the scene. But the Cathy he meets at the party still has been given the same confusing advice from her coach. Nonetheless, in most classes, the scene ends with the pair stumbling a little but eager to see each other again.
The third time the scene is played, Cathy has gotten a new coach, who gives advice from the class. “Clarify what you want before you go to the party,” she’s told. “If he doesn’t listen to you, get out of there. Don’t be embarrassed, call for help. You have a right to express yourself. No means no!”
Unfortunately, Cathy’s not with the new John, she’s with the old John, the one whose coach tells him he “owns the room” and that Cathy’s only being coy when she says no.
Sometimes these characters come to an understanding in the improvised scene, but more often there’s another clash. This time, however, Cathy leaves feeling better about herself and John is exposed as a cad who doesn’t care who he’s with as long as he has sex.
Act II
Flashback to the Preparation
Health teacher Dorothy Hahler at Sealth High School says her students consistently rate the presentation as one of the best they see all year. “They do a wonderful job,” she said.
But it’s a hard assignment for the actors. The yelling, the shoving, the violence leaves the actors red-faced and emotionally drained.
“It’s so intense for such a short period of time,” said actress Tijuana Layne.
One of the actors, Kristofer Cochran, said, “Normally in a role you get to build up into a character, but here you play just the climatic moments of a character’s life, then you’ve got to let it go and get ready for the next one. It feels like the actor Olympics.”
“Actors relax!” Maher shouted during a recent rehearsal when the scene ended with “You’re going to kill me!”
Maher or the other moderators, David Kline and Ingrid Shaw, stop the scenes just at the moment it’s clear the violence is not going to stop. They want to leave the message of violence without having the violence become entertaining and unreal, like an action movie.
The second day of the two-part program looks at physical abuse in relationships. Since the scenes change depending on what the students suggest, the actors must rehearse a variety of outcomes.
Part of their training is to understand the nature of domestic violence. What leads to it. What’s it like. That horrible buildup of I’mcalm-I’m-calm - Snap!
On their last day of rehearsal, the actors, who also include Edward O’Blenis Jr., Darby Stanchfield and understudy J. Noelle Brown, tell Maher they don’t feel they’ve reached what it’s like to be in a long-term abusive relationship.
Women who are battered over a long period of time spend their whole lives walking around on eggshells trying not to set the guy off, Maher explains. “You see women in supermarkets creeping along afraid to make the choice of this jam or that jam.”
So the actors try it again, with Layne as the mother and Stanchfield as the daughter and O’Blenis as the reason they’re on eggshells.
Act III
Back at the Performance
Today the students will see emotional and physical violence in relationships. Where it starts. Whether it can be avoided. How to read the signals.
One fun part - and there are fun parts - is seeing the characters the kids designed the day before brought to life.
A drug-crazed golfer?
Sit back and watch.
Usually there’s at least one sex-obsessed boy among the characters and one nerd. It’s common for the female characters to include the fast, easy girl and the hard-to-get girl, who is intelligent, pretty and boring.
All these characters have made-up names, good traits and flaws. The class picks out the two who would most likely be in a long-term relationship that becomes abusive.
After the class picks a setting, a conflict and an opening line, the actors are off.
Very quickly it’s clear this scene is not going to relationship heaven. It’s also clear that the physical and emotional abuse has been going on for some time.
“Freeze!” Maher says. “How do you feel?”
“I’m scared,” said Stanchfield. “Pissed off,” said Cochran.
The students set up the next scene. This one is looking for early warning signals. What signs were given in an early date that this relationship eventually would end up in violence?
Yep, the signs are there all right. Then they replay the scene after instructing both characters to listen to what the other is saying.
Maher knows that after two days of this, the young men in the classroom probably are ready to run off to join the men’s movement. Is the message here that all boys are violent, sex-crazed creatures and all girls are victims?
“It’s not about blame,” Maher tells the class. “It’s about changing the whole way we relate to each other and relate to people we know who are being treated this way.”
So the next scene goes back to the boy’s childhood. Mayer tells the class that seven out of 10 people who abuse were abused as children. But, only three out of 10 people who grew up in abusive households go on to be abusers, proof that some people break the cycle.
“Nobody decides they’re going to be a jerky person,” Maher said. “People get that way because they were treated that way.”
So back to childhood they go, to where Mama was abused by Dad or another man in the house.
Then they talk about power. Who has it? Who doesn’t? An abusive relationship is often an imbalance of power. How can people make sure they have equal worth in a relationship?
Have self-confidence and listen to what your partner says are two suggestions.
“A lot of people put on fronts,” said student Kim Neumann. “People need to break down the barriers and gain a sense of self.”
“If you don’t know how your girlfriend feels,” added her classmate, Marlon Bailey, “you’re not doing something right.”
xxxx Stand up for your rights in a relationship In your relationship, you are entitled to: Have your needs be as important as your partner’s needs. Have your own feelings and thoughts and be free from blame or responsibility for your partner’s behavior or actions. Fall out of love or break up with your partner and not feel threatened or harassed. Be free from emotional, sexual, financial and physical abuse at all times. Spend time with your family and friends and not feel pressured by your partner’s jealousy. Live without fear and confusion from your partner’s anger. If you are in an abusive relationship, consider these options: Call a domestic violence hotline. Join a support group. Go to a shelter. Get a protection order (if you are 16 or older). Call 911 if you are in immediate danger. Seattle Times