JAYDE KIRCHERT AND TOM MIDDLEDITCH: DEVELOPING EMPATHY FOR NEURODIVERSE HUMANS
Alexithymia is described as the inability to name and describe emotions, which affects 85% of people diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Citizen Theatre and A_tistic have joined forces to create a new theatrical work that gives a voice to stories of females who are on the spectrum. I spoke to Tom Middleditch, the writer and co-producer, and Jayde Kirchert, director and co-producer about neurodiveristy, how the partnership between these two companies came about, and how they’re trying to stimulate an autistic experience for non-spectrum audience members.
“I was told by a friend that someone from Citizen Theatre was looking for input on a character on the spectrum they were writing. That was Jayde! This was in late 2015. After this we kept in professional contact, and even applied to work together for another project. It was Poppy Seed that provided the perfect space for a proper confluence of our work” said Middleditch.
Middleditch has been playing around with this idea since 2014 and his earliest work in student theatre in Monash.
“The basic premise is that once you have a way to empathetic understanding of another person, you start being able to respond to them more effectively, and with meaningful kindness. It is an aesthetic project that A_tistic as an entity is dedicated to, and the co production has given a chance to give the material to a team who has not had the same experience as we have had, in both living autism and making these styles, and letting them mould it into a piece that they want to make out of it” he said.
He’s the co-founder of A_tistic, with the goal of developing empathy for neurodiverse humans, as well as being an actor, writer, director and dramaturg. A_tistic’s first devised production, Them Aspies, had two sell out season at Monash Uni Student theatre in 2014 and 2015, which he co-directed.
For Kirchert, The show has been evolving from the idea of wanting to give people an experience that gets them to not only reconsider how they process and understand different sensory inputs, but also how they might have had an experience that was similar to some part of autistic experience.
“Through various conversations with autistic and neurotypical people and lots of research, I started to understand some of the very small ways that I could relate to autistic experience, and I knew that as the director I needed create an environment where the audience could learn this lesson too. The aim of this is to shift the way neurotypical people perceive and understand autistic people – and themselves – and hopefully change the conversation around autism towards acceptance” she said.
Kirchert is a VCA graduate, an experienced director, and the founder of Citizen Theatre in 2013. Something different for someone in the arts- she also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Anthropology and her research interests including the body, religion, performance, materiality and biomedicine.
Tom wanted to write about Alexithymia for a while, and Poppy Seed provided the perfect opportunity to invest his time in developing the work.
“My goal with writing is to immerse myself in things I don’t know at the time, connected to my experience, as a way to boot-camp my own empathy and emotional intelligence, and thus an audience who experiences this with me!” he said.
Jayde Kirchert
The play has been written into 3 parts and each part explores a different aspect of the condition alexithymia (not being able to name emotions). The first part, Social_function.exe is about learning how to navigate emotions and understanding how they make you behave through the invention an artificial intelligence implant.
The second part, The Curious Case of You, is about naming, recognising and categorising emotions through a game show. The third part, Nirvana Syndrome, is beyond the worry of the complexities of emotional life. Here, a woman wakes up from an operation and discovers she no longer has ‘want’, or concern for what others think of her, so her emotional life is a sort of experience of nirvana.
“We are exploring the idea of having emotions but not necessarily knowing what they are or what to do with them, by incorporating the different stagecraft elements into creating and signifying the perception of sensory experience. There are instances where a character feels something, but she hasn’t quite figured out what it means or what it’s called and to signify this, a string of festoons above her will spark intermittently to match the feeling of the energy of her processing information in that particular way, at that particular time” said Kirchert.
Middleditch says it is important to put on shows like this because we still have an idea of what a “normal” show is, and to make accepting Autistic people a normal part of going to the theatre – it should be as normal as wheelchair access, bringing drinks into a show, and actors bowing to end a show.
“Some people like surprises, some people don’t. And we want as many people as possible to enjoy our shows and be part of the conversation. It’s really about making the show accessible to different neurotypes in the same way that people are now thinking about access for different abilities (deaf and hearing impaired, vision impaired, blind, wheelchair needs, etc.). No one should be left behind” said Kirchert.
They are also putting on a sensory friendly, or sensory relaxed performance.
“In short, it is a relaxed theatre setting for those who need it! There are a lot of unwritten rules in how to watch a show, and these can be directly antithetical to how some want to experience their art. This style of performance access enables such experience to flourish! What is specifically new about our work in this is that we are gearing our relaxed performance setup towards adults, who are more than often forgotten in the discussion around autism,” said Middleditch.
“A relaxed performance in our case will involve a dedicated area for people who need to get up or walk around, stim, move, and to do so safely, without feeling embarrassed or that they are inconveniencing anyone. The house lights won’t be fully dimmed, some of the sound levels will be reduced, any sudden lighting shifts will be modified to be less jarring and there will be an explanation of what the audience can expect sense-wise, which includes a tour of the playing space” said Kirchert.
The cast is neurodiverse. Two members of the cast experience aphantasia, one cast member identifies as neurotypical.
“We auditioned a range of female actors for the show, some autistic, some not. In the end, one of the key factors in casting was finding actors who had done some training and could therefore handle Tom’s complex and wordy text. The other thing I was looking for was skilled physical actors to help create the world of the play, because it is in the round, which is not an easy configuration to play and because at the time of casting the concepts and script were still in a very early draft stage” said Kirchert.
Having different neurotypes in the cast has been balanced with autistic creatives (production assistant Jacinta Anderson, dramaturge James Matthews and writer Tom Middleditch) and having other autistic women coming to rehearsal to share their feedback.
As the director Kirchert has been working with a neurodiverse cast and creative team.
“The great thing about working in a way that acknowledges neurotype, is that it allows us to interrogate in a really conscious way, why something is or isn’t working in the rehearsal room or in the production meeting and ultimately, come up with better ways of doing things so everyone is included in the conversation”, she said.
“For example, some of the cast members experience aphantasia, so have little or no ability to visualise images in their mind’s eye. As a director then, I can’t give image based directions and this has prompted me to expand on my directorial language and tools, try out new things and ultimately be more specific and precise in communication. The best thing about having a neurodiverse team is that everyone is approaching the work from a different perspective”.
Middleditch says the education process for those who identify as neurotypical has been splendid.
“We have been developing workshops in house with A_tistic that get actors and creatives to think within an autistic framework, specifically one that works for themselves. From there, the advocacy and appropriate language use has flowed naturally and coherently!” he said.
The show runs at Meat Market in North Melbourne from 8 to 19 November. Get tickets here – http://www.poppyseedfestival.com/events-calendar/2017/11/8/alexithymia-by-citizen-theatre-atistic, or support their wine drive fundraiser (a great Christmas present idea!) here: http://www.prospectwines.com.au/html/s13_shopping/default.asp?keyword=CITIZEN-
This article first appeared at: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/jayde-kirchert-and-tom-middleditch-developing-empathy-for-neurodiverse-humans/ on 6 November 2017
