TFSJ Gives Voice to the Oppressed

Diana Martinez

Sarasota, FL

As a Career Counselor, Tamara Rogers is usually a helper. When asked what role she wanted to play in the sociodrama, she decided she would be the hamster in the wheel in order to trade places with some of the people she serves. She was participating in a sociodrama enacted by Theater for Social Justice, a non-profit based in Sarasota, FL. Theater for Social Justice aims to confront oppression in our society by having members of the community devise and perform plays that lead to a deeper understanding of and even liberation from social injustice.  On July 22, 2023, ten people joined Theater for Social Justice for its first sociodrama at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in downtown Sarasota. They chose the question “What would it mean to thrive and not just survive?” as a theme for their group performance. They decided hamsters were the best way to explore this question.

As the hamster in the wheel, Tamara Rogers stayed in place and kept her eyes focused as if she had tunnel vision. She wanted to understand the perspective of someone who has no cultural capital. “You only know what you know. You don’t know what else you have access to.” 

Sonia Morgan, a Spanish teacher at a private school, played the champion hamster. She spun around with her arms and legs stretched out. She was doing mental cartwheels around the room so that she could explore the house in a hamster ball. She didn’t want to be in the hamster wheel with the other hamsters because “that’s who I was in life. I didn’t have my eyes open to know there were other roles in life.”

  Sociodrama is an action method, created by Dr. J.L.Moreno. Group members enact spontaneously a social situation, acting out assigned roles for the purpose of studying and remedying social issues.  Moreno is also the founder of psychodrama (the drama of the private individual).  In sociodrama, however, the roles are shared and the entire community is the protagonist having access to all of the collective roles. 

Theater for Social Justice is based on Brazilian theater director and activist Augosto Boal’s concept of Theater of the Oppressed, who sought to break the barrier between the audience and the actors. In a sociodrama, the people who face oppression are the actors and they identify a social issue (such as gender oppression, racism, or colonization of land and housing), create a skit, and explore the various roles through doubling and role-reversals.  

According to Daisy Martinez-Dicarlo, the founder and director of Theater for Social Justice, in a sociodrama, “The people who face oppression are the ‘spect-actors.’  They are able to observe as an audience and then participate when inspired to do so in a role they created or were invited to play when I asked, ‘What role do you want to understand better?  What role needs a voice?’”

Daisy Martinez-DiCarlo said her breaking point for wanting to offer sociodramas in Sarasota was when the NAACP listed Florida as an unsafe place for people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. “I knew that people from oppressed social groups were holding their breaths living in Florida and that they needed an outlet for their pain and, having trained in psychodrama for over 20 years, I knew that psychodrama and sociodrama could provide exactly the kind of process to bring this human pain into focus, so that we could understand it better and start to explore its effect on us, even to break its hold on us.”

     As the Director, Daisy walked around doubling the strengths of the spect-actors when it came time to find new and adequate solutions to the problem.  Doubling is when you connect to someone’s inside voice and offer to speak like their inside voice inviting them to expand their thoughts or feelings.  Daisy pulled from the list of strengths that the group members identified early in the process.  “I am a visionary.”  “I am considerate.”  “I am spiritual.”  “I am innovative.” The spect-actors were invited to repeat their strength if it was consistent with their truth or change it and make it their truth.  They were able to embody their strengths through these doubling statements.

Marie Carlock is a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who recently moved to Florida. She signed up for the sociodrama because she found herself feeling angry all the time because of all of the political divisions. She played the role of a hamster in the cage who wasn’t content in the hamster wheel and who wanted something else. She could relate to the role because her apartment in New York was 450 square feet and she grew up in a family with low income.   Her takeaway from the sociodrama is that she feels she can be more patient with others and not immediately assume they are oppressors, even if they are wearing a shirt that might imply their political views view her people negatively. “Sometimes people just don’t know any better and when they are exposed to a different view, they can open up,” she said. 

During role reversals, characters could switch places with actors and try to understand the issue from a new perspective or give a voice to the isolate in the group to validate their human worth. According to Daisy Martinez-Dicarlo, “The role reversal allows us to step into someone else’s shoes and to see the world through their eyes while not abandoning our own viewpoint. Role reversing gives us a shift in our insight that enables us to create social change through micro-liberatory movements such as sharing our resources with others.”

When Markesha Davis was given the opportunity to reverse roles, she took Sonia Morgan’s role in the hamster wheel and expanded it. Markesha is an Executive Assistant who is used to training new employees, so her initial role was the hamster who was giving out pellets to the other hamsters. In her new role as Champion Hamster, she decided to bring some of the hamsters stuck in the proverbial rut of the hamster wheel into the hamster ball with her. She discovered there was a kitchen in the house they didn’t know about. In fact, “There were sprinkles!” she says. She envisioned the sprinkles as the chance to work on her own business, which she has had to put on the back burner while she works at her job to earn a living. For her own business, Markesha makes custom headwraps and custom clothing for all body types. “I want people to feel comfortable instead of feeling they have to conform to a European beauty standard where everyone should be slim.” As the champion hamster, she was showing others that there are other opportunities out there and that a better world is possible.

At the end of the sociodrama, participants danced to the song “We Rise” by Batya Levine. Tamara, who danced in her wheelchair, said that she is often ignored in society, but today, she felt seen as a valuable group member.

To date, Theatre for Social Justice has offered to work to educate, support and empower women in recovery, the Boys & Girls Club, the LGBTQIA population and the HIV population.

  If you would like to partner with or connect with Theatre for Social Justice, you can contact them through their website at www.theatreforsocialjustice.squarespace.com.