Blogging Prompt #8

The gender stories weren’t exactly surprising for me, but it was very interesting to see the contrast between the stories. Most people’s responses held many continuities about the things that were expected from each sex. The back to back oration of our experiences really deepened the feeling of societies roles based on our genders. The greatest challenge from the reading was capturing the intentions of the author. There was an expectation on myself that I would correctly portray someone else’s experiences. Very similar to the Show Some Skin performances we took someone else’s story and placed our understanding on to the piece. Even if we felt as if we were portraying it as it was purposed, there could still be a disconnect. Campbell’s claim about theatre’s use of the example to better relate the theme of the performance to reality is shown by the performance of individual accounts from our gender stories. They bridged the reality of someone else’s story to the reality of their own. Kaplan says, “The relationship of actor to empathetic audience is absolutely crucial in moving through trauma.” Emphasizing the power of the relationship between the audience and the storyteller is very important in relation to our gender stories. Because we all had our experiences out there, we were much more respectful hearing and performing others stories.