Using theater as therapy for domestic violence victims

They are arguing -- again. It’s the day after Hannah went to the hospital. She says it happened because Bill pushed her. Only hours before her injury, Hannah said, Bill had told her he loved her.

But Bill disagrees. He said she fell after they argued when she didn’t get dinner on the table on time and “you know how I get when I’m hungry.”

“You push my buttons sometimes,” Bill said. “I think you do it on purpose.”

Sitting in a circle, a group of 10 women watched the disagreement unfold, shaking their heads as if they’d heard all this before.

Don Laffoon stopped the argument. He is a founder of Stop-Gap, a Costa Mesa nonprofit that uses drama as therapy for victims of domestic violence. In this case, the two disputants, Hannah and Bill, were professional actors he employs.

Laffoon started asking questions, trying to get the women, who live at an Orange County shelter, to analyze their own situations and possibly deter a cycle of violence in their families.

The session is just part of what Stop-Gap does. Besides working with a handful of domestic violence shelters in Orange County, the group performs plays in classrooms in Los Angeles and Orange counties on subjects including alcoholism, drug abuse and date rape. Stop-Gap also works in the cancer unit at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County and in the chemical dependency wing at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

During this weekday afternoon session, Laffoon sometimes would interrupt the drama to allow the group to talk about what had just happened. Some of the women had the words translated by an interpreter into Farsi and Spanish.

When the abuser is emotionally down, he tends to bring his victim down with him, Laffoon explained.

Daicy Minter, a translator for one of the victims in the room, said the victim “says that is how she felt. She was always going up and down. She didn’t know what to expect. That was her lifestyle.”

Other women nod their heads. Laffoon said the comments demonstrate how theatrical representations can help people analyze themselves.

“Therapists love to ask ‘How do you feel about that?’ ” Laffoon said. “We virtually never use the word ‘you.’ We never put the women on the spot. We talk about Sally or Joan or whoever.”

That process, he explained to the women, will help them see their lives in a new, focused way.

Stop-Gap, founded 29 years ago, was given its name to describe the gaps in communication that can be bridged by theater, Laffoon said. In the subsequent years, other meanings have been attached to the name. Stop-Gap also describes limiting the space between the emotions of the heart and the rational mind, he said.

This year, Stop-Gap received $24,000 from the Times Holiday Campaign.

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jennifer.delson@latimes.com