The Mesa College Theatre Department is known for its unique selection of performance material. The theatre company itself has a couple shows a semester with many different ranges of topics. Other than the company, Mesa has many other theatre classes to offer. One in particular would be the ‘Experimental Theatre’ course taught by Adjunct Theatre Professor Sheldon Deckelbaum.
Usually the productions are put on solely by the theater company but this past semester Deckelbaum’s been working on something very interesting with his students. In this class, the students are presenting us with a ‘Docu-Drama’ on the lives of the homeless population here in San Diego titled ‘UN-SHELTERED: A Documentary Theatre Piece About Homelessness.’
When asked what the reason for a piece like this was, Deckelbaum replied by saying, “Homelessness is such a serious issue in San Diego, nationally and internationally. It’s a visible issue to me. I live downtown and I encounter people who are suffering from homelessness on a daily basis.”
Deckelbaum continued, “I teach here at Mesa, and I was scheduled to teach a course in experimental theatre which is typically a production course, I decided that the production should involve the creating of a documentary theatre piece based upon the experiences of those who have been homeless.”
This is the first time Deckelbaum has ever done anything like this. In the past he has adapted material for the stage from other sources and written a few plays for the theatre but he had never conducted this kind of research with real people and then transforming it into a play.
Christina George, a theatre student at Mesa, gave us a little more information, “We have documented the lives of real people. We interviewed them through the course of four interviews and we would find out their stories and how they ended up homeless and we are turning it into art. It’s also important to note that nobody is being exploited. Every person we interviewed gave their consent.”
Actors and writers were paired up to create this production. There were teams of students who met together with the interviewees and audio recorded the interviews. George was a part of one of the teams who wrote one of the pieces based on ‘Avie.’ She also plays the role of ‘Sherry’ in another vignette as well.
“Homelessness is such a big issue to me. I’m broke right now so I can’t do anything, but when I get to the point when I am making more money I wanna handle the homeless issue. It’s my dream to build homeless shelters and low income housing,” George said.
When asked what they want people to get out of this experience, George replied with “Empathize with them. Be aware that they are people. I heard on the news that behind a bar in Santee where one of my co-workers used to work at, some college kids beat up a homeless person just because. That is unacceptable to me. It is not only upsetting to hear about but it is upsetting to think about. The bartender I worked with quit after that because she didn’t want to be anywhere that people are getting murdered just because.”
Deckelbaum answered by saying, “I hope the play sheds some light on the experience of homelessness and that people identify themselves in some ways with these characters in our play. I want them to recognize that they can become homeless through different circumstances. The people we interviewed became homeless for various reasons and we want to offer a glimpse of their humanity and help people enter that world within the safe place of the theatre.”
The play will get its first staged reading on May 15 and will have two more performances on the 16 and 17 in the Appolliad Theatre at Mesa College all at 7 p.m. Each performance is free and will have a panel discussion immediately following with some of the staff from Father Joe’s Villages and possibly some of the participants whose stories were captured.
This is only the first step for ‘UN-SHELTERED.’ In the fall the students will continue to work on the script and refine the material and in the spring of 2016 they will do a more fully-mounted production.