Tale #45: Smash It To Bits

Continuing with the theme of physical destruction as therapy: there’s a reason why rage rooms, break the rooms, and anger rooms have become popular.

It feels really good to smash stuff that is going to be destroyed anyways.

Everyone has stuff in their lives that causes uncomfortable feelings. Whenever I get overwhelmed with life, the news, work, etc I get what I call the swirling ball of energy in my rib cage. It feels like something is brewing that wants to explode out through my 24 ribs and hit whoever is standing across from me with a splat.

It was Billy Elliot in the Fall of 2016. I had been back home in Wisconsin for a little over a year at that point. I was working an on call job to make cash and my VACT jobs to fulfill my passions. However, I knew that was not going to be sustainable or practical long term. I simply felt unsettled.

The swirling ball of energy was brewing.

Now if you remember back to Tale #40: The World’s Cheapest Carnival, we had purchased our Billy Elliot set from the LaCrosse Community Theatre. They built their sets a little differently than we did. At VACT, our sets were always very sturdy so that pieces could be saved for re-use and we weren’t left with a lot of garbage after a show ended. While this did give some limitations in terms of the artistic design of a set, it was a very practical method.

LaCrosse chose to prioritize the artistic elements rather than the practical elements, so a lot of the pieces in their set were less sturdy. They had smaller brakes, they had flimsier wall paneling, and they were lighter overall. Their rolling flat pieces to represent Michael’s bedroom and the community center bathroom were not going to last past our show due to their structural design. Frankly, we were slightly worried they wouldn’t make it through our five shows.

Since there were no re-usable materials on the rolling flats, they were going to be completely destroyed and thrown away.

Enter: the sledgehammer.

On the Sunday evening of strike, myself and one of our older teen volunteers rolled the first set piece on the chopping block out of the High School Performing Arts Center’s scene shop, around the corner, and down the driveway to the High School’s dumpsters. We put the brakes down so it would hold sturdy on the pavement.

I grabbed the sledgehammer, wound up, and took the first big smash.

Smash! Smash! Smash!

I was like Harley Quinn only not nearly as evil or stylish.

With each powerful swing, the set came apart. It was really fun. The teen asked if he could get a few swings in. I kindly, albeit slightly begrudgingly, relinquished the sledgehammer and we traded spots.

While he was getting his swings in, a few of our younger cast members wandered down to the dumpsters to see what all the commotion was. They too asked if they could try.

My twenty-three year old adult self said sure, go for it.

Before I knew it, I had a line of children all waiting for their turn with the sledgehammer.

Now before you go thinking how on earth was this woman allowed to work with children enough years to earn a theater named after her, just wait. I did have some safety precautions in place. Only one kid at a time, I made sure the set was stable, and I made sure the space was completely clear before they swung.

Half of the kids weren’t strong enough to swing it that hard anyways.

We smashed our set pieces to bits, threw the bits in the dumpsters, and then walked back into the theater feeling a little lighter in our steps.

Our swirling balls of energy had been expelled for the moment through the power of the sledgehammer.