Quantum Theater Container Guidelines
Hello and welcome to the exciting world of The Quantum Theater. This will be an exciting adventure for everyone involved. There are a few things to be aware of before fully diving in. Read on before you agree to participate.
This process is designed to catalyze and alchemize an emotional experience in a safe way. It is specifically designed to identify an emotional imbalance, and then give you an opportunity to re-balance this issue on your own, through your own insights. We will begin by asking you about an issue in your life that you’d like to see change. We will identify the underlying emotionally-charged polarity within this situation. For example, this could be helpful/unhelpful, productive/lazy, competent/incompetent, order/chaos, or anything else which seems to summarize the feelings behind the issue. This is that building block that we use to build the theatrical scene.
When done properly, the experience should metaphorically “paint you into a corner” so that you are essentially forced to make a decision one way or another. Please remember that even though the emotions tha come up will likely be very real, this is a fictional play with no real stakes (even if the stakes feel real). If the character you are playing suddenly must feel offended, that is perfectly fine. Own it, and a the same time try and have a sense of humor about it internally. It is theater, so the scene is not “really” happening. Ultimaely, the medicine this kind of experience shows us is that transformation happens through a willingness to laugh at ourselves.
The feelings of the experience could be surprise, laughter, shame, fear, anger, disgust, etc. You may be faced with an overtly manipulative character (such as a pushy prostitute), an angry person who you need to convince of something (perhaps a pouty janitor), a well-meaning insane person (perhaps an elderly woman who insists on adopting you as her new baby), or some other ridiculous situation. It’s designed to take you out of your comfort zone and to stretch your imagination of what is possible.
Your character can rationalize to a point, but please allow them to change their mind eventually. If the “character” is tempted to escape the situation or refuses to give in, that is YOU who doesn’t want to see a new perspective. Please plan on being both authentic to the character, and also flexible enough to keep things moving. Deep down, every person wants to change and eventually needs to let their guard down enough to do so.
In an extreme case where a “character” is unwilling to budge from their perspective, it may be necessary to switch roles with the facilitator so that you can get help in moving the character forward as necessary. It’s better if you just allow it yourself.
In real life, people tend to hide many of their thoughts and only speak a portion of them aloud. This is not real life, so please try to speak your character’s thought process aloud as much as possible, even if it sounds unrealistic. This process is not about realistic acting, this is about illuminating the character’s logic that is at work. Owning ridiculous logic might sound absurd, and doing so will show you your own logic in a way that you can no longer ignore it.
Absurdity is an important aspect of the experience. You may be hit with surprise twists, impossible characters, and ridiculous situations. In improv, “yes and” is the golden rule. This means, if a silly situation comes your way – err on the side of accepting it as truth and move forward.
The process is not over before a transformation occurs. If it hasn’t happened yet, there is more that needs to occur. A scene is only finished when both characters have said absolutely everything that they need to say.
As a participant, it is important that you genuinely desire to be challenged and that you truly desire to see new perspectives. To this end, it is important to have some kind of “skin in the game”. Some form of energy exchange, be it financial payment or some other agreement, is necessary to ensure the integrity of the container. No following this guideline will tend to result in more projections and barriers, such as defensiveness and pride.
Recording the session on audio or video can be helpful for re-visiting later. This is usually best started after the session is mapped out, as that process may have a few dead ends and isn’t as interesting to listen to later.
Thank you for reading! Is there anything you feel should be added to this intro document? Do you have any other questions? Please let us know!
Joshua Panczer