Elizabeth Waller-What a Riot Response

In creating her play UPSET! with the Community Arts Partnership students at Plaza de la Raza Youth Theatre Program, Mady Schutzman used the Joker System—a structure and style of playwriting created by Brazilian theater director, Augusto Boal. Schutzman says: “A Joker System play is meant to be a spectacular discussion, or even a trial, where different ideas and feelings about an historical character or event can be presented and debated. The ultimate goal is to raise questions, offer multiple points of view, and encourage dialogue.” By using this structure, Schutzman created an ongoing dialogue with the students about difficult subjects addressed in the work. From the very start of the project, students’ voices and curiosities were involved and highlighted. At the beginning of the writing process, Schutzman had the students create a list of historical figures that they wanted to know more about. From this list, they collectively chose Rodney King and Claudette Colvin. These two figures became the central figures of UPSET! An important focus of Schutzman’s was to include the student’s questions and curiosities in the piece directly, instead of just making them recite her own thoughts and opinions. She “was interested in writing a play that included the young people’s experience learning about the characters they were to portray; their reactions and questions to the often brutal and terrifying events in the characters’ lives were as compelling to [her] as the events themselves.” Schutzman included these questions in the text directly, at one point having the Chorus ask Latinx student José Velasquez’s question about the bus on which Claudette Colvin made her protest: “If I were on that bus, where would I have to sit?” This direct inclusion resonated with me, because in dealing with such heavy issues of prejudice and violence, it can be difficult and even traumatic to portray them without question. Schutzman’s inclusion of the questions and doubts gave the piece nuance that only the students’ voices could provide. This piece was relevant to the specific community because many of the students involved came from diverse backgrounds and identities. Issues of race and privilege were not foreign to them but were things they had to think about every day. Schutzman’s use of the Joker System (the Brechtian nature of which allowed students to play multiple roles) allowed them to not only question their own role in society, but to also step into the shoes of the oppressors and search for their humanity. Schutzman makes it clear in “WHAT A RIOT!” that a key element of the Joker System is the clear differentiation of the good guys and the bad guys. Even though the actors swap roles, the audience is never asked to sympathize with the bad guy. Such was the case with UPSET!, only in playing the bad guys, the students were able to see them as humans, and see the complexities of their violent actions. In “WHAT A RIOT!”, it says that sometimes the kids were “confused and frustrated by how to work in an ensemble, playing one character for only five minutes before moving onto the next”. I’d be curious to know how Schutzman dealt with this frustration and confusion, and if or how she was able to bring the students together into a cohesive ensemble in the end.