Leadership and Change

I was unsure what the focus for a reflection on the Love Person should be, but as I was reading Bel Canto I was struck by several similarities between the two. One might argue that there are more differences than similarities – they take place in very dissimilar locations; there are many, many more characters in the book than in the play; Bel Canto was written in response to a real event, Love Person deals with societal ignorance – but there are at least as many similarities as there are differences.

Love Person focuses on communication. At issue is not the ability of the characters to talk with one another, but the recognition that depth of understanding, the quality of truly listening to one another can be self-limited by the mode of communication. Regardless of how deeply a hearing person wants to believe that learning sign language allows a level of communication equal to that shared by two deaf people, the reality is that unless one is totally dependent on non-verbal communication mechanisms, that comparability is unique. The conversations that Free and Ram have via the internet open the door for deep non-verbal communication, an opportunity for each to expose themselves to the other without the restrictions that inflection and body language can impose. The bond created makes them lovers of a sort, the decision to cease the communication is comparable to the break up of a significant emotional relationship.

Bel Canto is also heavily invested in communication. There is verbal communication – the responsibility for which rests almost entirely with Gen. There are many, many different languages spoken by the hostages and the terrorists. He alone can speak them all. He is the one who must translate more than just words, he must also translate the meaning behind them and face the consequences of inaccuracies and misinterpretation. Communication is a passion for him – he has chosen to learn many languages extremely well, others well enough to read. It is this immersion that spawns the two most important relationships in his life – professionally as Hosokawa’s aide, and romantically with Carmen.

The language of music is the second type of communication around which Bel Canto revolves. It is no less important than Gen’s verbal translations, but the effect is wholly different. Roxanne’s music is a language not spoken by the others, but is one in which they can, and do, submerge themselves and through which both hostages and terrorists learn. None of the terrorists and many of the hostages are unfamiliar with opera, yet her music brings them the freedom to develop respect for one another and a deeper understanding of themselves. It is also a language of love. Hosokawa knows the language well but is unable to speak it. Similar to Ram’s frustration with translating beautiful Sanskrit poetry to English, Roxanne is the keeper of the beauty and Hosokawa can only reap the benefits of the translation.

Both Bel Canto and Love Person tell love stories. In neither are these stories the sole point of the plot. Instead they are the outgrowth of both verbal and non-verbal mechanisms of communication, the disparities and limitations that are inherent in both, and recognition of the freedom and growth that each mode can provide.

In both of these pieces there is a link between communication and personal leadership. In Love Person, the less educated Free feels inferior to Maggie. Maggie has education, a career, and a life outside their relationship. Free’s life is built around Maggie’s schedule, and her ability to communicate with non-signers is puts her in a dependent position. She chafes at this imbalance. The email conversations and the surreptitious relationship she develops with Ram are for her and equalizer. They serve as confirmation for her that she has worthwhile, insightful and significant ideas and feelings to contribute. Ultimately, once Vic and Ram are married and the electronic relationship severed, she is able to state clearly to Maggie what the problems in their relationship are and what she needs to feel whole and secure within that relationship.

In Bel Canto both Roxanne and Gen become leaders through their disparate means of communication. Roxanne has the power to withhold her music. The group becomes more and more dependent on the beauty and comfort she represents, her ability to control them means the difference between a cooperative and a hostile environment. Gen, on the other hand, becomes a less transparent, more solid individual, confident in his own abilities and his own value. He and Carmen fall in love, she is the one great love of his life. Conversely, the man of power, Hosokawa, willingly subsumes his power to Roxanne in order to attain love.

Finally, though the two works seek to make very different social comments, they both use humor to emphasize and magnify a given situation.  In Bel Canto the hostages find themselves taking on roles they would never have considered prior to the drawn out negotiation period.  The Vice President becomes a sort of butler – he cleans, he serves tea and coffee, he treats everyone as if they were guests in a hotel.  Once he has recognized that his political aspirations will not be realized (and never would have been), he is released to discover within himself the paths he wishes to pursue.  Additionally, there is delightful irony discovery that one of the soldiers is a woman named Carmen.

So, too, is there wit in Love Person.  There is the plot line in which Free, a lesbian, serves as a surrogate, electronic Vic, thereby rescuing a heterosexual relationship that, if left on its own, would certainly have gone nowhere.  

To close what I perceive as the circle, I find it tremendously satisfying to find links such as these between these two pieces of fiction.  I have enjoyed being able to visualize and personalize many of the tenets presented in the class readings.  I repeat that I have some difficulty tying these two pieces to the larger perspective of the class.  That said, both were tremendously enjoyable and identifying commonalities between them creates for me, a comparable sense of satisfaction and completion.

Sarah Waldemar

It’s fairly clear that the play is about communication, as many of you have stated. What I came away with were some fairly simplistic reminders about how various forms of communication can make a difference in how our lives play out if only paid attention to. Following are some of my thoughts:

• It’s not what you say, it’s how you communicate it (or, it’s not the words, it’s the communication of those words).
• When we listen to what people are trying to say, it’s amazing what we can learn.
• Change happens when we truly listen to people.
• Listening to any form of communication can mean getting to know the soul of that person (who that person really is).
• Language has no barriers. We don’t necessarily need sight or sound to develop relationships, only communication (in any form).
• Change happens when people speak from the heart and live by their values.
• Values are communicated by demonstration.
• Leaders can emerge when communicating and demonstrating from the heart.

These are just a few things that I wrote down following the play. And many of these thoughts were also arrived at while reading Bel Canto. My second bullet above resonates: when we take the time to pay attention to what people are communicating (in any form), we might change how we act or feel. Good leaders follow that path. It is a strong reminder to resist the pull of our own agendas in favor of discovering other perspectives.

The first thing I want to do is apologize for what I feel like is a posting that’s a mile wide and an inch deep. I saw many examples of culture and power that I’m very familiar with due to my experience with Deaf culture, but would take me pages to explain. Maybe during class time some of it will come out. And of course, if anyone wants to talk more about the play and Deaf culture either via email or in person, I’d be happy to do that too.

Love Person made me think a lot about the relationship between culture and power; assumptions; the imperfection of interpretation and translation.

I enjoyed the production, Love Person, though the story was predictable in some ways and far-fetched in others (ie. How did Free get access to her sister's email account? And how could two people in a relationship not have figured out sooner that an interloper was also in the mix?). Those issues aside, I liked how the topics of communication and translation were being raised and considered for their strengths and weaknesses. Some of the articles on diversity that we've discussed in class were particularly relevant here, in that we need to take into account people's individual communication and learning styles, and also appreciate the value of good, clear communication. My workplace is currently going through an organizational development process, and the facilitators frequently will ask people to repeat back what they've just heard someone say. The amount of miscommunication and misunderstanding is astounding!

I thought that there were also some interesting parallels with the book Bel Canto, especially with regard to the language barriers and the translator's role in the story. In one instance when Ruben says to Gen, "Speaking [to Thibault] in French is very impolite," and Gen asked why. Ruben explained it is because Spanish was understood by the majority in the room, and suspicion wasn't raised when Spanish was spoken. The poor translator was put in so many awkward situations, the reader could really understand the complexity of his role. Interestingly, for me, I was in Denmark at the time I was reading the book, and my sister's profession is to translate texts from Danish to English. She is often paid to do a direct translation - which can sound pretty clunky in English. Then there is another level of translation that can take place, which is copy editing. In that stage, the translator changes the text to read more smoothly and to be more clear and understandable for the English reader. The translator must be particularly careful to not lose sight of the actual translation while at the same time changing the language. Love Person presented numerous instances of communication that got "lost in translation" and some epiphanies when communication was successful.

I must admit I was very surprised how much I enjoyed Love Person. I had attended a production at the Experimental Theater last semester and it was the most bizarre play I have ever been to. I was expecting some of the same at the Mixed Blood Theater.

For a couple of days afterward I kept thinking about the play. What was it that was so intriguing to me? It finally hit me that the play had the same qualities the old Doris Day and Rock Hudson Movies used to have. A good love story with a unique twist. I felt the actors were authentic and very real in their parts. The use of the different languages didn't seem to make a difference. Love is love in all languages.

I, like many others, thoroughly enjoyed visiting the Mixed Blood theater, meeting Jack, and seeing Love Person. I think a lot of what I gleaned from the visit has been covered. One theme that keeps coming back to me, however, is innovation and communication.

I love the fact that innovations like the Internet, text messaging, video conferencing, and programs like Skype have brought so many unlikely people together. How many of you know happy couples who were introduced on the Internet? These are people who never, ever would have communicated or even found each other without the Internet (like Ram and Free). Ram and Free were two people who needed someone . Communication would have been impossible but innovation made it possible to learn from each other--something that never would have happened even 15 years ago.

My question is, what new skills and tools are needed for leaders, as the world shrinks and so many more resources/possibilities are at our fingertips?

Mixed Blood’s production of Love Person was an unexpected pleasure. As other posts have noted, I found myself drawn to think more about communication. The following are some selected thoughts on the topic.

ASL is a beautiful form of communication. Expressing ideas without spoken word is the premise of many art forms. The allure of art lies in the possibility of finding deeper, alternate or simpler meanings. Sign language seems to hold this allure. I admired the character of Free. She held a confident, a non-verbal wisdom, that stemmed from her ‘freedom’ of the spoken word. This seemed evident in her exchange with Ram over the translation of the Sanskrit poetry. Does signing allow for a freer interpretation of an idea?

The Mixed Blood Theatre program describes the organization as "A Movement and a Theatre Dedicated to the spirit of Dr. King's dream since 1976," but its enduring success is more rightly attributed to the amazing leadership of Jack Reuler. In the half-hour conversation prior to the production of "Love Person," Jack afforded a remarkable insight into how his personal commitments align through the organization on into the world beyond the theatre walls. He is the embodiment of Kouzes & Posner in practice.

Mixed Blood and Jack exist in relationship with others. He never used the word "stakeholder" specifically. He used value-laden language to describe why and how the relationship existed in the past, or the present, or the future. He began his captivating explanation of Mixed Blood's history by setting the context of the common experience: it began with our walk through the neighborhood to their "island"; it continues with the experience of sitting next to other people; and participating in the performance itself. The 55454 zipcode, we were told, is the most diverse of any between Chicago and the West Coast - and the area from which the fewest patrons are drawn.

Mixed Blood's production of Love Person highlighted a lot of communication issues that savvy leaders would be well served to heed. I've longed believed that most organizations are plagued by faulty communications that lead to a majority of their problems. I sense, from the class readings thus far, that improving the lines of communication within an organization will allow leaders to be more effective in both stable and changing organizations.

Our experience at the Mixed Blood Theater tapped into so many aspects of this course. I am so grateful that we were required to go; learning happens in so many unexpected ways. The main theme I found tying it all together, though, was the overwhelming importance of communication.

I have to admit I am a little unclear about what I really need to write about.

I found Jack to be a very passionate person. It was fascinating how he started the theater and it is still doing so well. It was interesting to know about their audiences; how they don’t consider it as having a ‘following’. Instead it is the individual performance that draws the crowd, not the theater itself. I can appreciate what Jack was describing about the struggle in obtaining funding. I was on the Board of Directors of a non-profit gallery from its start-up/inception. I truly understand how difficult it is, especially in the beginning years, for non-profits to obtain grant money while, simultaneously, trying to educate the masses about who you are and why they should give donations to you over the next non-profit. I did enjoy the “Love Person” performance. I felt the play’s use of technology, the laptop, cell phones and monitors for the audience, made it a very original concept. It was especially interesting to reflect on the fact that even though you are communicating with someone, you really never know who that someone may be via email. It was the dichotomy between the use of technology and the ancient language of Sanskrit that I felt was an interesting combination.

Irene

The conversation with Jack prior to last Wednesday's performance was a unique and valued experience. He has been a leader in the Minneapolis theatre community for decades, moving forward with a vision for expanding the awareness of citizens to those who live around them.

His comment that traveling to the theatre itself -- through an immigrant neighborhood and parking in an area where my safety felt a bit challenged -- is an intentional part of the Mixed Blood mission. Their location is part of their mission, their vision, of connecting audiences with the community as well as providing throught-provoking theatre.

Commissioning specific playwrights to address social themes, and using focus groups to discuss community issues such as domestic violence, ethnic values, language differences, and accessibility speaks to the theatre's commitment to a shared vision that has served them well during the past 30 years.

I have visited Mixed Blood before and seen a variety of quality performances addressing a number of social issues. Those visits, infrequent as they were, changed me. They made me think in a new way, increased my level of empathy, provided fuel for conversation. That Mixed Blood has survived and impacted the Twin Cities when so many theatre groups flounder and fail is largely the result of a visionary leader. - nan

Several days after I saw the play I still find myself thinking about the various scenes, specifically the topics and the relationships portrayed in these scenes. The play covered so many different topics: deafness & hearing ability, homosexual & heterosexual relationships, cultural diversity, alcohol consumption, sibling relationships. For me, the single most important topic, on its own, as well as weaving through all these topics, is communication.

Unsure of a specific provocation for this response, I'm just launching into my thoughts. How can these organizations typically categorized as entertainment play a larger role in society?