Associate Reflection
Recently, our 15-year-old granddaughter acted in her first musical as a high school student. She was part of the chorus and dance troupe, not a lead actor but in a “supporting role”, as they say. The whole family turned out to watch her performance, eleven of us in a row, grandparents, cousins etc. She has been part of working hard at long, and then even longer rehearsals; she has found a voice and talent she did not know she had; she has found the courage to stand in front of an audience to perform well. And she learned not to be in the spotlight but contribute her best to make the ones in the spotlight do well.
When I worked with students in musicals, both in elementary and in High School, one of the hardest things for the kids with small roles to do on stage was to stay in focus. They could be as distracting by their inattention and boredom as they could by being silly or overacting. A spear holder had to be serious about holding up that spear. A maid who was dusting the table upstage could not upstage the main character as she spoke her lines. Their jobs were specific. In a lively song and dance, they could show some personality to differentiate their character, and their job was to sparkle, or to show sadness, or to inspire. Every movement, every person and every object on stage were there for a purpose – to carry the story forward. Practices were sometimes long and tedious with the purpose to ingrain their parts to the point they could perform them in their sleep, backwards. And they did shine when the time came for the show to go on!
I particularly enjoyed working with these kids. They were the shy ones, who desperately wanted to be part of a musical (or part of that community). It sometimes took weeks to get a child to project his voice or to put the right spin on his one line in the entire show. And oh, the pride they felt at the end when they overcame whatever held them back, whether worry about their peers, or a discomfort about some physical feature. One time, I had a student in audition who could not get a note out of her mouth, until a teacher stood beside her and sang her song with her. She got a tiny role that year, but came back the next year and the next, when she got a major part. Years later now, she has gone on to theater school and has gotten a number of acting jobs on stage and in movies. The kids who got the lead roles had enough confidence and talent that I didn’t worry too much about them. It was these little ones who grabbed my heart and I delighted in watching them grow.
Parents would remark that their children would never forget their play. I hoped they were right. The lessons learned from them were not just the lines, the singing and dancing, the costumes and the make-up (Oh, the make-up!) What I hoped they learned was how to step out of their own world and inhabit another person’s character. I hope they learned the discipline and work (and at times, boredom) involved in doing something well. I hoped they learned the courage to speak out for another by finding the courage to act on stage. (Gandhi was supposed to have encouraged parents to put their children into drama in order to give them practice in standing and speaking out. Pope John Paul II did the same).
And I hoped they learned that every part counts in life. The leaders in life need people to support them. The family needs every person to be part of everyday life. The church needs the people in the pews. There is joy in doing the supportive roles.
Right now, young people in the US are taking on important roles in the push for gun-control legislation, speaking out, taking part in demonstrations, and marching on Washington. Their voices are the ones who are finally sinking in to many in the corporate and political world. In this vital, pro-life work, many of them are in there doing the supporting roles, as are their parents, their teachers, their pastors. We are in a position to be the ones to give them their time to shine, so that their leaders can speak the truth in love. Like St. Eugene two centuries before, we can help our young people to strengthen legs, to find their voices, and to stand back and let them become the leaders God wishes them to be.
By Marie Luttrell – Provincial Associate