The Time I Played Sheriff Givens and Nobody Laughed
Reflecting on the Challenge and Joy of Empathy in our Divided Times
I took a risk. Or, I thought I did.
My sophomore year of high school I tried out for the school play, A Tuna Christmas. It’s a play with a fun mix of humor, satire, and small-town tropes - all unfolding in the fictional, town of Tuna, TX.
I was given the role of Sheriff Givens. It’s a small part, and I thought, “Six lines. Easy enough. I can do this.”
So I did. Sort of. Each time my scene came up during rehearsal I could not help but play the Sheriff as a slick, Ray Ban-wearing cop who had his stuff together.
“You’re an absent-minding, bumbling sheriff!” the Dirctor kept reminding me. In fact, the single stage note about this character read as follows: Called "Rubber Sheets" due to his having wet the bed at church camp.
And yet…I kept stepping into the character and then projecting the cool, calm, and collected person I wanted the sheriff to be (and let’s be honest…the person I wanted to be seen as). I had no idea how to lose myself fully in the sheriff’s actual person and reality.
Know what happened when A Tuna Christmas played for three nights at Wyoming High School starring yours truly as Sheriff Givens? The audience laughed regularly and heartily throughout the night - with the notable exception of when Sheriff Givens was on stage.
Because when I swaggered on stage as the cool, collected cop, the lines didn’t land. There was an obvious distance between the character on stage and the lines spoken.
The lack of audience response provided me a significant lesson about acting (and life): truly good acting means stepping fully into the character - no matter how painfully or shamefully or awkwardly different (or not!) that character may be from yourself.
At that point, I had no idea how to risk standing fully in the shoes of someone who made me feel rather embarrassed and uncomfortable.
And this gets to the heart of why one of the most important and regularly discussed concepts of our time is also one of the most difficult things to actually live; namely, empathy.
Time and again we hear the cries, “If we could just listen to one another!”
The voices come from different sides of the family, the issue, the community, the Red/Blue chasm. And always the plea is for empathy.
Is there a way to truly stand in the shoes of the person/people we deem uncomfortable or foreign at best or downright wrong or bad at worst? Can we somehow gain any measure of genuine appreciation for their person? Their place? Their perspective? Can we listen in a way that risks a real understanding?
At this point, many would say, “Honestly, no.”
How can I lose myself in bed-wetting, backwater Sheriff Givens?!
How can I lose myself in her/his/their person, place, and perspective?! (fill in the blank with any names or groups who most readily conjure disdain, frustration, or recent disagreement. Or, perhaps think of someone you readily love but with whom the divides can run deep).
Even among those who have not given up on empathy: how many of us have tried standing in the shoes of another only to continue seeing everything from our assumptions? Our perspectives? Our way of thinking they should do things?*
Real empathy requires a profound letting go. Dare we risk it?
Here’s the thing.
A few years later I attended a professional showing of A Tuna Christmas. Do you know what happened when Sheriff Givens took the stage for his few lines? The audience laughed! And I am talking about some of that good ol’ fashion, deep belly laughter. Sheriff Givens brought the house down!
Why?
The actor got it.
The actor did not idolize or demonize Sheriff Givens. He simply risked letting go into the sheriff’s full person. He let himself connect with the sheriff on the sheriff’s terms and the sheriff’s culture. He let himself feel the sheriff in all his foibles, including those that might be easily disdained or dismissed.
While the actor was decidedly not Sheriff Givens, he made it clear that he got Sheriff Givens. And in finding that connection, the room opened. We laughed. Heartily so!
Empathy is not agreement. It is not affirmation.
Empathy is about standing in the shoes of our Sheriff Givens - and letting go.
It’s about feeling our way to a point of connection.
True, empathy does not solve our significant differences. Instead, we discover a new appreciation for one another’s humanity. We experience a new opening wherein the deeply human things of laughter, tears, and hope spring forth.
We see the power of empathy all the time from the great actors of our world. They disorient, reorient, and reintroduce us to people and perspectives we had otherwise put in a box.
What if we saw that in the ways we connected with one another? In our relationships? Our school boards? Our social/economic/racial/political differences and divides?
Dare we risk trying on the role of Sheriff Givens? Is shared, soul-stirring laughter a deep enough vision to draw us forth?
* This is why one of the go-to techniques used by couples counselors is the Speaker-Listener Technique:
Speaker 1 is invited to say something concrete about how they feel:
“When you are late for dinner, I feel hurt and disregarded.”
Speaker 2 is then invited not to rebut or offer their (usually preferred) perspective. Rather, they are asked simply to repeat what they heard Speaker 1 say, beginning with the words “What I hear you saying is…”:
“What I hear you saying is that when I am late for dinner, you feel hurt and disregarded.”
(Truth: as a pastor who has done a good bit of couples counseling, I find it takes a few rounds before Speaker 2 actually says that line. It is simply not natural to step all the way into the shoes of another without somehow also offering your own take. Imagine if Speaker 2 had to do an entire six lines!)
Speaker 1 is then given the chance to reply as to whether they have been heard or not:
“Yes, that is what I am saying. Thank you.”
(Truth: if and when that “thank you” is said from a place of being heard - and even if the couple’s issue at hand remains far-from-resolved - you can feel the entire room open. Hope abounds when the heart feels heard.)
‘I see ‘said the blind man. Great story with lots of meaning!