Schools

Clayton to Host Play Examining Issue of Bullying

"Cruel to be Kind?" is a joint project of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute and Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.

Scenes from Shakespeare's As You Like It will be performed this week in Clayton as part of an effort to educate families about bullying.

"Art can reach one's heart and soul quicker than anything else," said Jacqueline Langley, an adult psychoanalyst and an advanced candidate in child psychoanalysis at the Ladue-based St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. She edited multiple drafts of the specialized play—called Cruel to be Kind?—which will be performed Thursday at in an event sponsored by Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.

Langley participated in the graduate department of theater at the University of Nebraska while getting her doctorate in psychology. Both subjects are her passions, and both allow a person to emotionally entering another's world, bypassing the intellect.

"You have to immerse yourself in the skin of another person to know them," she said.

Cruel to be Kind? is the fictional account of Shakespeare writing the play As You Like It, said Chris Limber, education director with Shakespeare Festival. When the playwright observes one of his teenage apprentices bullying younger apprentices, he stages a rehearsal to educate them about the act and its consequences. It focuses on three roles—the bully, the bullied and the bystander.

Shakespeare Festival regularly performs two short plays that examine a contemporary issue that's important to young people, Limber said. Cruel to be Kind is a companion piece to Shrew and a Few, which will be performed this summer in Forest Park.

The plays also are being performed as part of Shakespeare Festival's Education Tour, which has been in existence for 10 years, Limber said. It reaches 22,000 students in the St. Louis area each year.

This year, the ensemble has been performing Cruel to be Kind? on the road since February. It generally follows the play with a workshop in which students participate in theater games and other activities to look at issues such as safely diffusing bullying and reporting the behavior.

Limber said the play demonstrates the importance of working with all parties in a bullying situation. To him, bullying happens when someone is mean toward another and threatens that the behavior will continue, inducing fear.

"You have to work with people who are the victims, are the targets of bullying, as well as the bully him or herself and try to rehabilitate them so that everyone grows and becomes better and gives up the role," Limber said.

Thursday's event will feature a panel discussion about bullying that will include Langley and other mental-health experts.

Langley, the adult psychoanalyst, said people who become bullies started out as victims. Their behavior serves as a defense against vulnerability and injury. What's more, the cycle can repeat itself when victims identify with the role of the aggressor because it is the stronger position.

Research shows there is an 80 percent chance that students will be bullied at least once between preschool and the end of high school, Langley said. That's true in both public and private institutions.

It's her professional opinion that indirect bullying—that done by a group of people, for example, or over the Internet—is more pronounced today than in the past. It's also more hurtful because it's harder to identify the bully and intervene, and it leads victims to conclude that something must be wrong with them.

"It leaves more to the imagination," Langley said.

She said Thursday's play and panel will show families how bullying develops and what can be done to intervene. Many will be surprised to learn that bullying can't be treated simply by working with the bully, Langley said. Instead, institutions such as schools must make a systematic effort to address it.

"The entire school is affected by chronic bullying," she said.

WHAT Cruel to be Kind? play and panel discussion WHEN 7 p.m. Thursday WHERE Clayton High School auditorium TICKETS $10 per person. Tickets may be purchased by going to stlpi.org.
MORE INFO Go to stlpi.org or call 314-361-7075. Thursday's panel also will feature Gary Hirshberg, a clinical social worker, and Nadia Ramzy, an adult psychoanalyst who specializes in bullying.


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