Jobbiga känslor på jobbet

Abstract

This article is based on a research project carried out at a theatre for children and youth. The project focus was interactive children’s theatre, a format that allows the audience to interact with the actors in improvised stage art. This format is highly interesting from an artistic point of view: it gives the young audience opportunities to influence the theatrical flow and to experience a mixture of fiction and reality, thus enabling audience members to reflect over issues and ideas through acting and participation. However, from the actors’ point of view improvised interaction with different young subjects also entails unpredictability, and with this comes emotional stress. The children’s individual reactions on the theatrical situation varied from sheer happiness, to a lack of interest, and even to violence and self-destructive behaviour. This range of unpredictable reactions, and the responsibility that comes with interacting with children, caused the actors stress. This article accounts for a method designed by the actors in cooperation with the in-house researcher to help the actors cope with and understand the various encounters with their young audience. Methodologically, the article is based on feminist participatory action research. Theoretically, the article draws on the concept of emotional labour as presented by Arlie Hochschild in her groundbreaking work The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling (1983/2003). Emotional labour was also the starting point for developing the method accounted for in the article.