{"id":4696,"date":"2018-12-19T12:57:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T18:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/for-wisconsin\/?post_type=campus_story&p=4696"},"modified":"2019-03-29T13:44:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T18:44:10","slug":"uw-milwaukee-helps-traumatized-veterans-with-assistance-from-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-milwaukee-helps-traumatized-veterans-with-assistance-from-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"UW-Milwaukee helps traumatized veterans, with assistance from Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
The Feast of Crispian is a program at UW-Milwaukee that helps veterans find a way to express themselves through the words of William Shakespeare. UWM educates more military veterans than any other four-year college in Wisconsin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Charlie Walton has been searching for the words since the moment he touched down in Vietnam as an 18-year-old Marine. After a trans-Pacific flight filled with gung-ho songs from boot camp, a Viet Cong sniper welcomed Walton and his fellow recruits by picking off a lieutenant as he deplaned. On his first patrol, Walton was attacked by a North Vietnamese soldier brandishing a knife. Walton froze and couldn\u2019t pull his rifle\u2019s trigger. His squad opened fire, and the assailant fell at Walton\u2019s feet. Later, a friend stepped on a land mine. Legless and begging for help, he bled to death in Walton\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

Walton didn\u2019t speak of such things, and so much more, for decades. How could he? When he came home, no one wanted to hear about it. He lost touch with his brothers in arms. He lived alone with the nightmares and guilt. He turned to drugs. He went through six wives and countless jobs. Then, about 15 years ago, a friend urged him to seek help at the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs hospital in Milwaukee. Walton screamed, vented, pleaded and cried to therapists and social workers, and it released much of the pressure. But he still couldn\u2019t open up to the world. He couldn\u2019t find the words.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when a VA social worker directed him to a new program with University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee roots. There, veterans had found a way to express themselves through the words of someone else: William Shakespeare. It was called the Feast of Crispian, after the famous call to arms in Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHenry V.\u201d The idea was to turn veterans into thespians, allowing them to make the Bard\u2019s dramatic dialogue their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps me express myself,\u201d Walton says. \u201cI was brutal to people, the things I could do and say. The Feast teaches me to transform that energy. It teaches how to be angry and sin not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Feast of Crispian was created by Nancy Smith-Watson, Jim Tasse and Bill Watson. (UWM Photo\/Troye Fox)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Feast of Crispian is the brainchild of three people: Bill Watson, a UWM associate professor of theater; his actress\/somatic therapist wife, Nancy Smith-Watson; and Jim Tasse, a UWM theater senior lecturer and military veteran. UWM educates more military veterans than any other four-year college in Wisconsin, and the trio was looking for a way to combine their skills to help people.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d seen how Shakespeare had been used in Massachusetts prisons to help inmates and focus wayward juvenile offenders. Why couldn\u2019t the same method help men and women suffering from post-traumatic stress, which so plagues veterans that every day, on average, 22 of them commit suicide?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an actor,\u201d Tasse says, \u201cwhen doing Shakespeare, you\u2019re tapping into an energy. We\u2019re taking that energy and tapping into a veteran\u2019s story, and allowing it to be released.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some instances, the results have been nothing short of life-saving. \u201cI never thought I would live to see my 40th birthday,\u201d says Carissa DiPietro, an Army veteran who was raped by a noncommissioned officer. \u201cI always thought I would have committed suicide by then. But thanks to Feast of Crispian, I\u2019m now 41, and I have my whole life ahead of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feast of Crispian\u2019s work isn\u2019t meant to replace other forms of therapy, but for many veterans, it has served as a valuable supplement.<\/p>\n

\u201cConventional therapy, where you go directly into the traumatic memories, wasn\u2019t working,\u201d Bill Watson says. \u201cIt just retraumatizes them. So how can you access it obliquely? Your target as an actor is to try to get in touch with an emotion that is supposed to have happened. To buy into it enough that you tap into your own grief. We\u2019re working on getting emotionally connected for real into something that is imaginary.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2013, the Crispian co-founders put their theory into practice. They partnered with the Zablocki VA to hold weekend workshops at the hospital. They chose scenes centered on direct interpersonal conflict, usually between two or three actors, from plays that dealt with war, like \u201cHenry V,\u201d \u201cJulius Caesar\u201d and \u201cOthello.\u201d The workshops attracted a dozen or so ex-service people of every age, from Vietnam vets to combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five years later, the method remains the same.<\/p>\n

Vets gather and sit in a circle. On Friday, roles are assigned, with Saturday reserved for rehearsals. They play out scenes in the middle of the circle, the professional actors hovering over their shoulders like guardian angels, whispering lines into their ears. The vets are then free to focus their emotions and soak in the experience without the burden of memorization. When a line isn\u2019t said quite right, Tasse, Watson or Smith-Watson will coax a different delivery through a simple remark: \u201cHe just called you a liar. How does that make you feel?\u201d The line is spoken again, and the scene continues seamlessly. Then, on Sunday evening, the groups perform for the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou take your own skin off and put someone else\u2019s on,\u201d says Ronnie Graham, a UWM theater student who served in the Navy and now helps run the group as a liaison. Working with Feast of Crispian has helped him through his own difficulties with substance abuse brought on by his wife\u2019s death from leukemia. \u201cYou can say things and do things, whatever you want, and it\u2019s therapeutic. Then you can come back and be yourself without hurting someone. I hurt a lot of people trying to search for something to hold onto to make me happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
UWM theater student and Navy veteran Ronnie Graham (front, right) found solace in Feast of Crispian in the wake of his wife’s death.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The interplay also allows the actors to connect with the kindred damaged spirit behind the mask. DiPietro says she feels more comfortable when acting with this crew of like-minded vets than she has anywhere in a long time. \u201cIn this group was the first time I told anyone that I had been raped, other than the military police. Before I even told my husband,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on that stage, all you have is each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shakespeare, Graham notes, is ideally suited for this sort of exercise. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that things he wrote about 400 years ago are still relevant today,\u201d he says. \u201cThe language is so beautiful.\u201d He believes its rhythm, in the Bard\u2019s iambic pentameter, is therapeutic by itself.<\/p>\n

That belies some memories of Shakespeare held by those who dreaded third-period English. But Watson says the biggest barrier is not the heady material; it\u2019s the fear of performing in front of others. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things that drives this, though,\u201d Watson says. \u201cWe\u2019re putting them through this stress on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally, the pressure gets a little too real. In a production of \u201cOthello,\u201d one vet-turned-actor was supposed to break up a knife fight between characters. The experience awakened a dark memory from Operation Desert Storm, and a real scuffle might have broken out were it not for the intervention of his surrounding friends. \u201cIt sometimes triggers their PTSD,\u201d Watson says. \u201cBut it\u2019s in a safe circumstance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The practice builds confidence. And, Watson adds, onstage stress is met with positive feedback in the form of audience applause: \u201cThey were heard. They were seen. And they were validated that it was OK to expose all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feast of Crispian has spurred interest from other schools and veterans\u2019 organizations nationwide. A demonstration was staged at a reception during the UW Board of Regents meeting hosted by UWM in summer 2018. The audience\u2019s emotional response was palpable, and in the following days, the program\u2019s leadership received inquiries from colleagues in the UW System who wanted to learn more.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the best gauge of Feast of Crispian\u2019s success is the individual growth of its participants. After three years in Crispian, DiPietro now helps facilitate an annual women\u2019s-only weekend for veterans and the wives of Crispian vets so that they can share the experience. \u201cI\u2019ve seen it change marriages,\u201d she says. \u201cI now have a relationship with my husband and my children. And I\u2019m starting to like myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see how it eases their transition,\u201d Graham says. \u201cThey see that they\u2019re not alone in this world. It\u2019s not just me who has these messed-up thoughts. People have for hundreds of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie Walton has found a kindred soul in Brutus, the antagonist from Shakespeare\u2019s historical drama \u201cJulius Caesar.\u201d Walton is not an assassin; nor is he a traitorous friend. But in Act IV, Brutus and co-conspirator Cassius, now both soldiers, are in the former\u2019s tent before a battle that was sparked by their regicide. The men, facing the deadly consequences of their actions, turn on one another and on themselves. Brutus accuses Cassius of having accepted bribes to kill Caesar, and he tries rationalizing what he\u2019d done for honorable, patriotic reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember March, the ides of March remember,\u201d Brutus says. \u201cDid not great Julius bleed for justice\u2019s sake? What villain touch\u2019d his body, that did stab, and not for justice?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Walton first stood in the middle of the room, performing this scene with a 300-pound biker playing Cassius, he was not thinking about the fight for Rome. He was revisiting his own war. As he repeated these lines, Walton unloaded a burden he\u2019d silently carried for 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI faced him and he faced me,\u201d Walton says. \u201cIt was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlie Walton has been searching for the words since the moment he touched down in Vietnam as an 18-year-old Marine. After a trans-Pacific flight filled with gung-ho songs from boot camp, a Viet Cong sniper welcomed Walton and his fellow recruits by picking off a lieutenant as he deplaned. On his first patrol, Walton was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[107],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-4696","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-milwaukee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/4696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=4696"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=4696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}