STOP-GAP USES DRAMA TO SEND A SOCIETAL MESSAGE

“When No Means No” is not meant to be an ordinary theatrical experience. Nothing from the Stop-Gap drama troupe ever is.

Consider the story: a dramatization of one case of “date rape,” from the assault itself to the scenes years later when the victim tells her family about the incident for the first time.

Consider the audiences: high school students who view the 20-minute drama in the classrooms and then discuss rape prevention in sessions led by Laguna Beach Community Clinic counselors and the Stop-Gap actors.

Although the discussions, like the play, steer clear of graphicness, the exchange with students is unmistakably frank about the sexual mores that can contribute to incidents of date or acquaintance rape.

And it is this kind of societal theater--part confrontation, part forum--that has helped make the Costa Mesa-based Stop-Gap one of the few acting troupes of its kind in the United States.

“We’re professional actors, not psychologists or trained therapists,” said Don Laffoon, Stop-Gap’s executive director. “But drama has a role, too, in helping to break the cycles of suffering and to help enhance the therapeutic effects.”

The five-member Stop-Gap troupe occasionally stages plays on the Orange County community theater circuit for general audiences. The latest in this series is Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie,” which opens April 24 at the Brea Civic Center’s Curtis Theatre. However, most Stop-Gap ventures are highly social-oriented and aimed at special audiences.

“When No Means No,” now in ts fourth year, is being given at 45 high schools. Stop-Gap is also on tour with “Under Pressure,” a 20-minute play about drug abuse, to more than 40 junior high schools. The cast in “Under Pressure” features youths from Phoenix House, a Santa Ana-based rehabilitation program for drug users.

And Stop-Gap actors regularly visit county institutions, hospitals and various community centers, offering drama-style therapy to victims of abuse, delinquents, cancer patients, alcoholics, mentally and physically handicapped and many others.

Now 8 years old, Stop-Gap is part of a relatively new form of theatrical activism that uses actors and other theater artists in workshop and therapy sessions in medical centers, correction facilities and other social institutions.

Some theater troupes, such as Imagination Workshop in Los Angeles and Creative Alternatives in New York, deal chiefly with psychiatric patients. The focus, spokesmen for these groups said, is artistic expression--teaching creativity as a way of building self-esteem and communication.

While Stop-Gap has the same aims in its institutional visits, the Orange County troupe is among those that involve themselves more directly in group therapy, according to Renee Emunah, president of the National Assn. for Drama Therapy.

“There are still very few organized groups like Stop-Gap doing drama therapy. I don’t think there’s another group that is serving such a wide range of clients on a regular basis,” said Emunah, who heads a graduate program in drama therapy at Antioch University in San Francisco.

Stop-Gap’s drama therapy techniques are based on highly improvised situations, from freely imaginative recalls to very specific role playing.

The group sessions can be seemingly routine discussions, such as those with elderly stroke victims at convalescent hospitals. These patients can be asked to imagine what’s happening at a picnic or other family gathering--a technique aimed at speech recovery.

Or sessions can be about bitter family confrontations, such as those described by abuse victims at the county’s Orangewood Children’s Home. In these sessions, the children take on all the roles--including those of the parents, teachers, counselors and police officers--and improvise the dialogue for each character.

Stop-Gap has been making weekly visits to the county’s home for abused and neglected children since 1981 (the troupe’s first involvement with a public institution) and to the county’s Juvenile Hall facility for the past year.

“Frankly, when Stop-Gap first approached us, we had some misgivings,” recalled William Steiner, former director of the Orangewood facility and its predecessor, the Albert Sitton Home. “They still weren’t well-known, and we just weren’t sure how effective they could be.” But, he added, “Stop-Gap has proven to be exceptionally effective in reaching many children who were not being reached by other ways.”

According to Karen Luttecke, the Laguna Beach Community Clinic’s program coordinator, acceptance of the “When No Means No” touring project has not been universal. “Some high schools consider rape too controversial a topic for any classroom,” she said. “But our tour has managed to develop significantly (from 20 to 45 sites), and we find this very encouraging.”

The state Office of Criminal Justice Planning has allocated $18,000 to the Laguna Beach Community Clinic for the “When No Means No” tour this year. The county has given annual grants of up to $50,000 for Stop-Gap sessions at Orangewood and other county facilities.

Stop-Gap has also won grants from major corporate patrons, the largest to date being $7,500 from Target Stores. Other donors have included McDonnell Douglas, Pacific Mutual, R. C. Baker Foundation and Disneyland.