When it comes to date rape, college kids have plenty to learn
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Not long ago, a woman at a college threatened Kathryn Fumie, who had just questioned why the country needs affirmative action.
"You better shut up and listen," the woman said, growing more agitated.
There wasn't much Fumie, a New Ulm, Minn., native could do. She had to stay in character.
She's Linda the bigot and she was playing her part -- and doing her job -- to try to get some ideas through to people on the nation's college campuses. She's an actress with GTC Dramatic Dialogues, an acting company that tours campuses, performing skits and then holding sometimes-heated discussions on race, sexual assault, and substance abuse.
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She's also Jessica the naive freshman who didn't see someone spike her drink at a frat house and was sure the only reason she was being led upstairs was to play pool, and she's Nicole the date rape victim, perhaps the hardest role she plays, given that people in the audience usually tell her she's responsible for her own rape.
Most of her work with the organization is in the fall, when colleges hire the group to perform and lead discussions during freshman orientation.
But this month, sexual assault awareness month, the company was invited to perform two shows at a Twin Cities campus (we are not naming it to protect the privacy of the participants). One performance was for the general student body -- only a couple dozen showed up -- and one was for the entire athletic department.
The players were required to be there, even though the NCAA championship basketball game was underway.
Fumie, accompanied by actors Paul Rutledge and Darrick Mosley, traverse the country in search of an honest dialogue on subjects that college bravado can turn into a joke that's not funny.
"It's the only thing I ever wanted," she told me recently about her acting career, which is doing well now that her "also waits tables" days are over. She's working with four different acting companies, but she's the veteran with GTC Dramatic Dialogues now, although she knows she can't play a college kid forever.
On the evening I visited this week, Toussaint Morrison, a Minneapolis actor and hip hop artist, moderated the discussions that took place after each script. He performed with the company for 10 years and now leads some of the most difficult discussions Minnesota has ever tried to have. "The script on race was written in the '80s," he told me. "It's still relevant... sadly."
"If you're looking for answers, we don't have any," he told the college crowd before the performance. "What you say matters."
What the audience has to say isn't always pretty. Take the date-rape scene, which Fumie says is the hardest for her to play, and is usually the most intense for the audience.
It's difficult for her when her character says "maybe it was my fault" in the scene. First she has to be emotionally devastated to stay in character. And she has to ignore "the Kathryn in me" to draw the audience into a more open discussion
If she doesn't get to the line blaming herself, it's only because the audience beat her to it.
"You're all bull****," a woman in the audience told her in the recent performance, because Nicole had taken a sweater off, and had invited "Tom," played by Rutledge to stay the night. But only to watch Glee.
Tom didn't get the message, though, and pounced on Nicole.
"She was asking for it," another audience member said. "Being all sexy and stuff."
"Don't act like a victim," said another.
Many of the men in the audience -- and more than a few women -- hooted with approval. Other women rolled their eyes and clearly were struggling with anger toward their classmates. Some struggled to make the obvious point: "No" means no.
The reaction seemed to stun the sponsors of the event. "There are (sexual abuse) survivors in the audience," a student leader, wearing a "Got Consent?" T-shirt reminded the crowd.
"One in four people on college campuses is sexually assaulted," Morrison told his audience, after asking them, "Do you think this is funny?"
"One in seven is raped, and they're usually freshman," he said. "That," he said as he pointed to a trembling Nicole, "is rape."
When the performance ended, it was unclear whether that message got through to the non-believers. Another 20 minutes or so of discussion might've been too hot, and, besides, the allotted time was up and many of the students had indicated early on they didn't want to be there.
When they played the night before to those few in the student body who attended the performance, Nicole the date rape victim got something that was mostly in short supply in the company's latest production: sympathy and understanding.
On this evening, the students got something to think about.
