You learn in the theater how to...
You learn in the theater how to deliver a line so the audience understands it. You learn that communication is more than the written or spoken word; it’s about empathy and nuance and understanding your audience.
The best productions happen when everybody in the house is tuned in to the story, when the energy is two-way.
Al Valletta owns the Backstage Theater & Co. in Costa Mesa, and while he’s not in the prophesying business, he thinks he’s learned some things about the delicate art of communicating with our fellow man.
As a sidelight to his theater and speech communications background, Valletta has conducted various communications seminars at area businesses in recent years, talking both to management and employees, especially at companies with significant ethnic diversity in the workplace.
What he’s observed is that while there may be talking going on, there’s not always communication. In other words, the production kind of limps along when everyone else is either missing cues or stepping on other people’s lines.
He’s picked up on the fear or wariness that many people feel about the increasing ethnic diversity of the county. There’s plenty of fear, as well, coming from the ethnic minority groups, and it’s that two-way fear that must be transformed into societal benefits, Valletta said.
“We Americans are very impatient,” he said. “We forget that what makes this country so great is the influx of the immigrants. Today there’s a fear of too much of that occurring. I think it’s eventually going to be good for the country, but we have to be aware of that and willing to understand other cultures’ values and work with those values.”
Because his professional life revolves around language and nuance, Valletta is especially conscious of how words sound to others. “It’s important to understand that we Americans tend to talk very, very fast. I think we should slow down when speaking to somebody. We should talk a little more articulately, rephrase things, go back over something, to make sure that someone understands what we’re talking about.”
The language barrier is a natural dividing line, but other cultural traits also hamper better relations, Valletta said. “If you’re in a business situation, the Japanese tend to be much more laid-back. They show a lot less on their faces, they’re not as vocal, not as physical as Americans. If you didn’t understand that, as an American, you’d think this person doesn’t care what you’re talking about or he was not going to work out because maybe he doesn’t understand what’s happening. So a lot of misinterpretation comes as the result of cultural differences and cultural values.”
Valletta said he thinks immigrants want to blend into American life. “People very definitely want to assimilate and want to become part of what’s going on in the culture. If it doesn’t look like that, it’s because of fear. You realize when you go to another country how intimidating it is when you cannot speak the language.”
Understanding some Asian habits and traditions, for example, could help erase some misunderstandings, Valletta said. “Some people don’t like to be touched. You can’t pat a Japanese person on the back. That’s not their thing. You just can’t do that. We tend to do that.”
Similarly, he said, Asians are embarrassed by strong public displays of praise, such as at the office. They’d rather be told privately or get a memo commending them, he said.
Valletta said he’s aware of many Americans’ concerns that they’re doing all the accommodating to the foreign-born, instead of the other way around. “I think (immigrants) for the most part want to learn English. I think if they say they don’t, that’s coming more out of fear or that they might not be able to learn it.”
Valletta’s take on the future is fairly simple: The multiculturalism of modern society isn’t going to be reversed, so the choice is to go kicking and screaming or make some efforts to understand other people.
“Around 11, 12 or 13% of the culture speaks another language other than English in the home,” Valletta said. “That’s a pretty high percentage, and by the turn of the century statistics show that maybe one-third of the culture will be speaking another language at home.”
That frightens many people, I suggested.
“I think it scares people because we tend to stereotype,” Valletta said. “We automatically think that when someone doesn’t speak English, they’re not educated, they don’t understand anything, they’re lower-class, they’re not going to be able to function effectively in the business sector. And that’s not the case. When we don’t understand a culture, we tend to stereotype it and we tend to fear it.”
Another guy who knew a little about the theater said almost 400 years ago that all the world’s a stage and that we’re all players.
Wouldn’t you love to come back in 100 years to see how the human drama of Orange County’s multicultural experiment of the late 20th Century turned out?
Did the Anglos, blacks, Latinos and Asians ever perfect the production, or did it degenerate into an unending series of blown lines and bad plot twists?
The final reviews are yet to be written.
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.
