Tickling scenarios

Danger and opportunity. That’s what the word crisis means in Chinese, according to Terry O’Leary, No Fixed Abode’s director.

And it’s apparently what the newly-minted actors will present at next Wednesday’s performances; problems which pose both a danger and an opportunity. The solution(s) will come from the audience.

Emergency, insecurity, risk, hazard, instability, menace, precariousness, jeopardy. All meaningful words to our actors familiar with the sharp edges of life. Opportunities and solutions have less resonance. But that’s why we’re here. 

The actors are tasked to come up with an image, a scenario: “How people become homeless”. Not surprisingly this doesn’t take long.

The desperate story of one young participant’s immersion in parental neglect and violence is soon co-opted. She is upset remembering what happened but as her experience is merged into others, and she can replay it in a different way, she recovers. Her strength and determination to move on is truly impressive.

Terry is pleased we have “tickled out a couple of scenarios” as she put it about how people find themselves on the cusp of a crisis; the tricky boundary between danger and opportunity.