"From our silence, vibrating life.
Expanding into the group.
A symphony of voices, echoes,
moonbeams and statues.
Music lives here."
From an original poem written by the Thresholds Theatre Arts Ensemble
Playwright Thornton Wilder once defined the theatre as "the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being." At Thresholds, a psychiatric rehabilitation center in Chicago, professional theatre artists and members of the Thresholds community have immersed themselves in a collaboration of discovery, sharing the sense of what it is to be human, revealing the individual spirit through words, movement, and performance.
Being given the privilege of watching their rehearsal, I easily begin to forget that the members of the Thresholds Theatre Arts Project live with schizophrenia, major depression, bi-polar, anxiety, and personality disorders; the rehearsal is just like any other, but with enviably more exploration and play. With scripts in hand, actors review staging, focused intently on the creative process. The desire to get things just right and to do justice to the script, however, is doubly vital in this rehearsal room, considering the playwright is right there, serving as the narrator (much like Wilder in a performance of Our Town).
Energy and creativity palpably spin around the room, where about twenty people play warm-up games. Co-directors Marti Szalai-Raymond and Brighid O'Shaughnessy guide this ensemble through a 7-month rehearsal process, leading toward their annual August production. Four professional artists-in-residence complete the troupe, lending a helping hand to their co-directors and to the member actors. But according to O'Shaughnessy, who began her time here as an artist-in-residence, the professional actors' contributions are rewarded with a renewal of their own artistic spirits. "I was feeling disenchanted with the business of theatre and being an actor, and I was missing the reason why I had gotten into theatre in the first place," she recalls. Through her work at Thresholds, O'Shaughnessy found that her own process and perspective as an actor was revitalized. "One thing that blows me away is that in every single rehearsal, you can come in and just say, 'Hey, I'm here,' and everybody claps for you! It's a great feeling to know that all you have to do is show up, and that's appreciated and recognized." Sure enough, O'Shaughnessy's words prove true when, upon my introduction to the ensemble, I receive a hearty round of applause myself.
Co-director Marti Szalai-Raymond, a spritelike, windblown woman, began at Thresholds as a caseworker, and has been working with the Theatre Arts Project for nearly a decade. The love between Marti and the ensemble is pervasive, and the members treat her with the deference owe a mother, and the playfulness given a puppy. She leads the company through lively and yet advanced warm-up exercises derived from the work of Augusto Boal, Paul Sills, and Viola Spolin. Through improvisation and structured methods, she helps the members create works for staging. "We call it Personal Story," she says, explaining that the genesis of the ensemble?s work has over the years developed from Playback Theatre. "The whole idea is that someone tells a story and then the ensemble plays it back." Over the years, ensemble members have used these methods to not only create theatre, but to overcome personal obstacles, as Marti illustrates with the story of a former member who suffered from hallucinations. "She was seeing a kind of vortex in her mind, and felt as though she was unable to perform that day." The group, after listening to her description of her sensations, played back to her what they thought she might be experiencing. "It's healing," she says, "but it's more than that. It's profound."
Poet and ensemble member Mark Gonciarz, who was involved in an earlier version of the Thresholds Theatre Arts Project several years ago, recalls the day that Szalai-Raymond asked him to join the Theatre Arts Project. "You don't deny Marti," he laughs. Several of his pieces are being staged for this year's production, combining spoken words with sign language and music. "It's a great feeling to see something come from the page, that I wrote, take physical form," says Gonciarz.
Another contribution to this year's show comes from writer and performer Lena Bryant, whose story, entitled Girl in Distress, is based on her experience with sexual harassment in high school. "This is my second year," she explains. Bryant, who suffers from social anxieties, is hard pressed to say which she values more, the rehearsal process or the resulting performance. She feels that both have helped her tackle some of her fears. "It took a lot for me to participate last year, because of my anxieties. I have to fight that back, and to come out of my shell. It was a big step." Now that she is a veteran of the Theatre Arts Project, she finds herself giving guidance to newcomers. "Getting along with all the other people, the personalities," Bryant muses. "That's the biggest challenge."
As I participate in warm-up games and watch their rehearsal, I observe each performer's individuality and character fitting into the team like a puzzle piece, completing the picture. Robert is studious, but devilish. Tom, whose piece the ensemble is rehearsing, tries his very best to teach classic tunes to the younger ones (Brighid can't, for the life of her, catch on to "Hot Diggity"). Cheryl brings the house down with her infectious laugh and million-dollar smile. It's no wonder, considering the ease and bounty of creativity, that so many of the members come back year after year to craft new Personal Stories.
"We as artists have a tremendous responsibility to the community," Marti Szalai-Raymond fervently expresses. The passion with which she and O'Shaughnessy guide the ensemble is no less than would be expected in a professional theatre; in fact, it?s likely more. The realization that even through all our differences, "the sense of what it is to be a human being" is universally understood and appreciated in this room, as each, through the immediacy of theatre, dares to bare his soul.
Thresholds' upcoming performance of I Remember now and then.... A Cathartic Collage of Connections will take place August 18-21 and 25-28 at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. To learn more about Thresholds, visit www.thresholds.org.