Reflection on Shadowed Dreamer

After seeing Stephen Hart's performance "Shadowed Dreamer" I felt as though I could not critique it. It's like after someone tells you a really tramatic life changing story and then you ask them if they were telling you the truth. Stephen's story was amazing that's for sure. What a hopeful story of an abused child who made himself into a successful actor.

During his performance I couldn't help but to think about how Stephen went about writing his story. Stephen's performance seemed genuine and sincere, but it seemed like he just sat down with you and told his story. It made me think of a motivational speaker I could have had at my high school. When I considered Stephen to be acting a performance it took a different spin. To top that he was acting out his story. This was definately a new kind of performance style, but I didn't know exactly how I felt about it.

It was hard for me to think about Stephen writing this screenplay and deliberately guiding the big climactic moments. He was consciously guiding the engagement and emotions of the viewers and I didn't like having to think how he would plan which horrible story he's going to throw on us next. Also why didn't he give us the details of any triumphs like him acting on the West End of london? For me, this is where his sincerity could've potentially gotten blurred as a writer/actor.

After watching his performance he truly seemed genuine. For me I felt more comfortable calling him( in the context we saw him) a motivational speaker. When I did this all of his qualities remained I just didn't bring the skepticism into play. I didn't want to doubt his honesty, but since acting is based around mastering being someone else I can't help but question if Stephen was telling the total truth. Stephen's story was unbelievable and i thought that everyone should see it. I'm excited that he is going around to High Schools and doing his act, because He raises some real issues that most people don't want to talk about and it's important that he does.

As an educator we always need to look out for signs, but we can never really know unless the children bring it to our attention. I believe that Stephen's story will make children know that they need to talk about their issues to people. It tells us educators that we really need to pay attention to our students and be there for them when they need us. In the end I believe that we can't critique Stephen's story. We just need to embrace him promoting awareness and trying to bring a positive change to our communities by sharing his story with people who need to hear it.