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Movement Issue 153 summer 2016 Peterson Toscano INTERVIEW Peterson Toscano is a theatrical performance activist using comedy and storytelling to address social justice concerns. Through his one-person comedies and lively lectures, he has delighted audiences throughout North America, Europe, and Africa as he humorously explores the serious topics of LGBTQ issues, sexism, racism, violence, gender, and climate change. He lives in Pennsylvania with his husband Glen, and blogs at www.petersontoscano.com Why do you think that the dramatic arts are a good way to pass on messages of faith and inclusion? What makes this medium effective? What is lovely about theatre and storytelling is that it helps the listener to get outside of their head. Good theatre moves the audience to feel about an issue and to not simply think about it. It can create empathy, and reveals when we are in collusion with oppressors. Also, we listen to stories with a different part of the brain, one that is not as critical and judgmental as when we listen to a lecture. We let our guard down and hear messages we often filter out or reject. In that way theatre can be a subversive art. I see the parables of Jesus working in this way, opening up the mind to a greater understanding, leading to critical thinking and deeper feeling. Many of your performances employ humour and comedy to make serious points about LGBTQ+ inclusion, gender, climate change and other issues close to your heart. How does humour help you tackle these and other issues? Humour relaxes the body and the brain. When we experience fear and shame, we physically tense up. This tension happens in the brain too – neural pathways close making it harder to reason and retrieve information. This is why when we begin to panic, it’s easy to forget simple instructions. Comedy helps to loosen us up. This is especially important when talking about hot topics like sexuality, faith, gender, climate change, and justice. You speak courageously and openly about your experiences of conversion therapy and being queer in evangelical environments. What would be the main message you would want people to take away from hearing you talk about these topics? Page 10 Movement – Issue 153
The main message I get back to over and over is that we need to be concerned about people, not politics. Much of the suffering I experienced in churches and ex-gay ministries was from people who truly believed they were doing the right thing, but they did it in an environment that insisted only heterosexual unions were blessed by God, and anything other was less than and needed to be destroyed. This in turn dehumanised lesbians and gays and bisexuals and transgender people. The political belief that it was wrong to be LGBTQ caused good people to act cruelly in the name of God. You are active in climate change activism and awareness – what role does your faith play in your work on this? I am curious about climate change as a pastoral care issue. Think of the emotional and spiritual needs of a people on a planet that is changing so rapidly. Consider the risks we face and the existential crisis of living in a world that seems ready to eject us. There are of course moral issues to consider too. I see climate change as a human rights issue that calls on people of faith respond with all the tools at our disposal. You grew up in evangelical environments and are now an active Quaker – what differences do you see between these traditions and what is the most valuable thing you can take from each? In the evangelical Church I was reminded over and over about how nothing particularly good lived inside of me. I had to be wary of the old man, my flesh, and the devil. My heart was deceitful above all things. Therefore, I needed to distrust myself and instead look outward – to God, as God was presented in the Bible as interpreted by the ministers. Perhaps because of my own insecurities and self-doubts I distrusted myself too much and trusted the ministers too much. This perspective though kept me locked up in the closet unwilling to raise any questions and terrified to come out. My experience among Quakers has been radically different, but actually not all that different from the teachings of Jesus that I overlooked for years. Quakers stress that each of us has the Light inside of us – that of God in us. Or as Jesus teaches in the Gospel, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us, the Kingdom of God inside of us. As St. Peter instructs, we have a treasure inside a clay vessel. My spiritual focus is now more inward, that the inner teacher Jesus instructs that inside us. Discernment, therefore, has become an important part of ‘Gratitude happens when some kindness exceeds expectations, when it is undeserved. Gratitude is a sort of laughter of the heart that comes about after some surprising kindness’ Movement Issue 153 summer 2016 my spiritual life, and fortunately I have Friends to help make sure I don’t come up with too many wacky notions. My time in the evangelical Church was not all bad. It was there I learned the Bible and studied it. While some Quakers know and read the Bible, the rich history of Biblical storytelling comes from my time in the evangelical Church. As a Quaker, you come from a rich tradition of spiritual activism and non-violence. How does this influence your work? I do comedy, and many people know comedy can be mean and mocking and dehumanising. In fact, that is the easiest type of humour and is in great demand. How better to bring low an opponent than to make fun of them. But this is not an option for me. Perhaps it is in part because of my temperament, but also because I worship in a peace church that actively seeks to be non-violent. Through the Quaker Advices and Queries, I am encouraged to see the humanity even in my opponent, which is very different than just being polite to an enemy. But this has challenged me to seek out new places for humour and storytelling. Who inspires you? My husband, Glen Retief, inspires me because of his discipline as an artist who is willing to explore trauma. He published a memoir a few years ago, The Jack Bank – A Memoir of a South African Childhood. It is about growing up white and gay during Apartheid South Africa. The book is a meditation of violence, including the extreme bullying he experienced in a government boarding school. His fearlessness to look at suffering on an individual and a national scale moved and inspired me. Now he is working on a novel about South African history. His commitment to the artistic process, the daily slog of writing along with the willingness to write whole chapters over from scratch serves as a challenging and encouraging model for me with my own art. If you could give one piece of advice to students, what would you say? Cultivate gratitude. As the New York Times Columnist David Brooks wrote: ‘Gratitude happens when some kindness exceeds expectations, when it is undeserved. Gratitude is a sort of laughter of the heart that comes about after some surprising kindness.’ 1 This is just a small part of our interview with Peterson. Go online to read the whole thing, including more on comedy and climate change, and what Peterson is up to next – www.movement.org.uk/blog 1 www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/opinion/david-brooks-the-structure-of-gratitude.html Movement – Issue 153 Page 11
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