FORMING THOUGHTS, REFLECTING LIFE

Of all the books that I have read (and that is many!), four in particular have had a significant affect on me:

Mimetic Reflections:

A Study in Hermeneutics, Theology and Ethics,

by William Schweiker;

Role Playing and Identity:

The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor,

by Bruce Wilshire;

Improvisation:

Drama of Christian Ethics,

by Samuel Wells;

and

The Drama of Doctrine:

A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology,

by Kevin VanHoozer.

The first book introduced me to the notion of mimesis

through a theological discussion of Derrida, Girard, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Kierkegaard;

the second book introduced me to phenomenological philosophy

through theoretical discussion of theatre, my life-long passion;

the third book confirmed my intuitions

regarding the application of Keith Johnstone's ideas on improvisation to Christian life;

and the fourth book authenticated that confirmation

by radically applying the theatre metaphor to Christian doctrine.

Now I hope to bring it all full circle

by drawing on all four books to express my own thinking

regarding the actual practice of "putting on Christ."

someMimics Theatre in Community

The simplest way of understanding someMimics is to consider your own hope for creating and/or living in a healthy community. The dominant culture in which we now live seems quite incapable of cultivating such communities. Too many of us are left out or, at least, feel left outside of community boundaries created by the dominant culture. Being left out often means being left alone or left with other who have been left out.

I deeply believe that NO ONE should be left out and that EACH ONE OF US can be responsible for coming alongside others who have been or feel as though they have been left out. Rather than continuing to speak of US & THEM, I passionately hope to create a new conversation in which every one of THEM can become one of US.

The underlying philosophy of someMimics is that we were all LEFT OUT a long time ago and have been trying to GET BACK IN ever since. The question one might ask, then, is: left out of what? I prefer to ask, given the assumption that we ALL have been left out, what can we do to not make our situation worse?

Culture that includes some and isolates others creates SICK communities that have at their core the cancer of miscommunication; i.e., persons in such communities tend to avoid intimate contact with one another and thus continue feeling isolated despite their supposedly communal relationships. Starting from this assumption of isolation, someMimics Theatre in Community works with individuals and groups to rehearse right relationships in order to begin creating a culture that can cultivate truly HEALTY communities (yes, I mean to use the plural form of community; this allows for the reality of cultural diversity. Diversity, however, does not require division; diversity within unity is possible). Health comes from healing and so our work is often therapeutic in practice.

Theatre has always had that therapeutic dimension; someMimics Theatre in Community merely incorporates that therapeutic dimension explicitly.