The two friends were leaving the movie theater when CJ received a phone call from his irate father. The boys rushed to his home, and after the door slammed, his friend heard a series of loud noises, like something being thrown against a hard surface.
The actors froze and the director asked the audience if someone wanted to step into the role of the friend: “What would you have done?”
“This feels so déjà vu,” one of the audience members mumbled under his breath, but didn’t volunteer to get on stage.
Others called out, “go home,” “ask him about it the next day,” “call the cops,” “go home and call my parents.” A volunteer stepped up, mimicking phoning his dad to ask for help.
In between reenactments, the director asked, “Is doing nothing a possibility?” Almost everyone nodded or said yes. “Is everything you’re going to do going to work?”
Finally a slight boy with curly dark hair who rarely looked up when he spoke climbed onto stage. Raising his arms above his head, he mimed breaking down the door to CJ’s house. For a moment, he transformed into a different person.
[For more of this story, written by Shanoor Seervai, go to https://www.statnews.com/2016/...er-trauma-teenagers/]
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