In a world that feels increasingly fragmented, two East Coast companies are offering individuals facing overwhelm and trauma the means to find restoration within their families and communities.
Voices Festival Productions’ Who Cares: The Caregiver Interview Project, a docudrama that debuted Jan. 9-Feb. 2 in Washington, D.C., details the struggles and surprises of caregiving. Using verbatim testimonies, original stand-up material, and excerpts from The Measure of Our Age, M.T. Connolly’s book on elder justice, the ensemble piece is performed in a church basement within a fictional caregiver support group. Audiences are invited to partake in refreshments and camaraderie as the play addresses the complexities of unexpected caregiving for loved ones, particularly those dealing with memory loss.
“It’s important that we are not in isolation as we are caregiving,” said A. Lorraine Robinson, who co-wrote Who Cares with Ari Roth and Vanessa Gilbert. “People struggle with this every day and don’t share their experiences, or gloss over it. You don’t know the drama they’re going through.”
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Ritual4Return, which launched in 2018, offers a 14-week program for formerly incarcerated individuals—returning citizens—to leave behind the “rite of degradation” of imprisonment and participate in a “rite of elevation,” a public homecoming to society. With techniques such as story circles, rooted in the work of Black theatre companies like Junebug Productions, participants work with embodied and verbal storytelling exercises to share their survivor stories, culminating in a one-time public performance by each cohort.
“We should be welcoming people home,” said executive director Kevin Bott. “That’s what gives people a sense of being part of a community. Rituals are expressly designed to facilitate such transformation.” Starting in April, the program will accept applications for a two-year nationwide training program for organizing such reentry rituals across American cities.
