STAGE REVIEW : Stop-Gap Pours Some Strong Medicine in Its Attempt at Healing

In ancient Greece, the theater was a temple of healing, a place where the secret, unspeakable wounds of society were opened and cleansed.

Monday on South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, the Stop-Gap drama therapy troupe demonstrated anew the tremendous power of theater as a healing art. A showcase of touring productions that Stop-Gap offers to schools in Orange and Los Angeles counties proved to be not only moving and provocative theater, but also a courageous scalpel cut to the social cancers devouring so many young people.

The program began with “Not Guilty,” a piece directed toward elementary-school audiences. Seen in its entirety, “Not Guilty” presented two sisters and a brother, the children of an alcoholic parent, who contain their anguish with various kinds of self-destructive behavior. The final question, directed to the audience, was “What else could we do?”

As performed in the classroom, “Not Guilty” does not end with this desperate, unanswered cry. After the formal performance, the actors, working in small groups with children, engage in discussions and dramatic presentations of alternatives to self-accusation and silence. All the plays showcased involve classroom processes of evaluation, including improvised scenes, which empower the young people to discover positive alternatives that can break the cycles of despair and suffering.

This is powerful therapy.

The second piece, targeted at high-school students, presented the mother and older brother of a young man who has recently died of AIDS. Ostracized by their friends and facing a widening circle of condemnation born of ignorance, they hesitatingly shared their grief.

Don R. Laffoon, executive director of Stop-Gap, introduced this piece with the chilling statistic that AIDS, while on the decrease in the homosexual population, is on the increase among heterosexual teen-agers. Yet, such is the resistance to the acknowledgement of this growing horror that the AIDS piece, “My Brother’s Keeper,” is the least requested of Stop-Gap’s programs.

Teen pregnancy is still on the rise, too. “So There I Was” addresses this issue with humor and common sense. A clinic counselor, played with world-weary charm by Helen Ingebritsen, deals daily with young people who are sexually active but contraceptively ignorant.

A scene from Stop-Gap’s most-requested play, “Under Pressure,” focused in on the labyrinthine problem of drug abuse with clarity and heart. Scripted by Stop-Gap’s prolific and multitalented playwright, Robert Knapp, it was performed by residents of Phoenix House, a Santa-Ana based drug-rehabilition facility for adolescents and adults.

These teen-agers, in their debut performances, brought their personal histories and passion to the play, which was, in fact, created out of a compilation of stories unearthed in drama-therapy sessions at Phoenix House.

A scene from “Use My Real Name,” which focuses on ethnicity and prejudice, opened the second half of the showcase. In it, a violent tragedy is deflected by the recognition of the essential similarity of all human beings. “You grew up with two parents, I suppose?” the immigrant queries his attacker. “And your father has said to you, ‘Son, make me proud’?”

In each of the scenarios, the invisible foundation of the problems, as well as their solutions, is the family, which has become the underlying tenet of the entire Stop-Gap program, according to managing director Victoria Bryan.

“When No Means No,” next on the bill, grapples with the degradation of date rape, and investigates the fears that prevent victims from seeking help. Eva Burgess turned in a volatile performance as a rape victim who has kept her pain to herself, only to have it explode years later by a chance meeting with her assailant.

It is difficult to assess the players’ individual thespian abilities given the non-traditional format of the performances, but the cumulative effect of the evening was cathartic and stimulating. It can also be said that all performers exhibited versatility in handling a number of roles and commitment to the material.

The showcase culminated with the presentation of Stop-Gap’s newest creation, “The Miracle of Me,” a verse comedy for primary grades that deals with that mysterious and essential ingredient of survival and success: self-esteem.

With the aid of a delightful young audience volunteer named Sierra, executive director Laffoon sketched the techniques used in the classroom to involve the children in the drama and let them know that there are solutions to their problems, no matter how frightening they may seem.

For 13 years, Stop-Gap has been listening to the needs of the Orange County community and creating theater pieces that answer those needs. Originally targeted for the elderly, Stop-Gap now performs 17 weekly drama therapy workshops in special-needs facilities all over Orange County, in addition to the touring program, which reached 425 classrooms last year and hopes to increase that number to 600 this season.

Stop-Gap’s repeated theme is that help is available. The tremendous community support that was evidenced by Monday’s full house and Stop-Gap’s impressive roster of contributing organizations offered impressive testament to that position.

Stop-Gap’s 1991 Showcase

Performance directed by Don R. Laffoon. All plays written by Robert Knapp. With Karlene Bradley, Robert Knapp, Tekla Ackelson, Helen Ingebritsen, D. Renee Brooks, Gary St. Angel, Eva Burgess. Presented at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.