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What A Riot!

What strategies did she employ in her process of making in play with the youth?
Mady used the Boal’s Joker System as an opportunity to engage a pedagogy of intervention,, and with this tell a story of violence, racism, and resistance in America. Using this method, she explains that it provided a means to incorporate the youth’s curiosity, dismay, outrage, fear, and inspiration in relation to the subject matter of the play within the play. Mady wanted the youth to be very involved with the creation of the play and first had them come up with a list of historical characters they would like to know more about and celebrate, and eventually came down to two characters (Rodney King and Claudette Colvin) that they voted on to learn about people they didn’t really know of.
What approaches resonated with me?
The approach of the Joker System turns a play into a discussion, in essence, and even a trial, where different ideas and feelings about a character/event can be debated. The goal of which is to raise questions, offer many points of view, and encourage dialogue. The idea of that is amazing especially since we live in a time where I feel like so many people are divided in ways I never thought we really would be. I feel like that division is created from bias and from lack of “education” and empathy and understanding. No one discusses anymore, it’s almost simply a war out there. This is a great approach on how theater and art can be used to directly target the audience or the public.
How was the play relevant to this specific community? The play is relevant because the communities of East Los Angeles faces their own sets of similar issues that these characters in the play faced with racism, color, etc. It is a lower class community, automatically seen with a quick glimpse as if we were living back in the time of Rodney and Claudette and how a quick glimpse between black and white was the difference between poor and better off.
What questions might I ask Mady and why? I would ask… What story would you like to create today? What story would you have performed in front of the Capitol building or the White House? How would you address the US prison system and police brutality in a play?

-Kevin Crisostomo

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