The Reason I Jump: autism memoir becomes a theatre-maze in Scotland
The theatre can be a difficult place for people with autism. I remember taking my son when he was younger. I could feel him squirming, trapped in the seat next to me, confused by the strange convention where people seem to be talking to you but you are not allowed to talk back. The darkened auditorium filled with surprises and the lack of control over the experience made for a situation that could have been designed to make a young autistic person anxious – second, perhaps, only to mainstream education, as we were soon to discover.
So when faced with staging Naoki Higashida’s extraordinary book The Reason I Jump, about his experiences as an autistic teenager, we wanted to make something that didn’t behave like a conventional theatre show. How could we give the audience – autistic or otherwise – more control of the experience and a say in how the story unfolds?
An obvious starting point was to involve people with autism in creating the show: to make it their story as well as Higashida’s. If we were to say anything as interesting about autism as the book, we had to involve those with firsthand experience – parents of autistic children being the worst kind of “experts”, as my autistic friends like to remind me. The book allows us to hear directly from its author and spend precious time getting to know how his mind works. Could a theatre show communicate this remarkable worldview at the same time as allowing an audience to meet others with autism and hear their stories? After all, the diversity of behaviour and experience of those on the autistic spectrum is one of the condition’s defining and often confusing characteristics. Creating a space for that diversity of voices felt important.
The idea of taking the audience on a physical journey, to reflect a journey of discovery, seemed appropriate for a book that has taught so much to so many. We first thought of a journey through a series of rooms, each exploring a question related to autistic experience in the same way that each chapter of Higashida’s book asks and answers a question. As the complexity of these questions and this journey developed, it felt as though we were creating a kind of labyrinth or maze that might stage a series of encounters with our autistic performers.
I discovered that a maze and a labyrinth represent almost opposite types of journey. The maze is a puzzle to be solved, a series of rational choices, directions to be negotiated and dead ends to be recovered from. There are no choices to be made in a labyrinth, with its circuitous design, but instead a single path to be followed, an experience to give yourself up to, and a chance to enter into a more meditative frame of mind. The labyrinth design is as old as civilisation itself and appears independently in many cultures. Its use as a means of spiritual practice, both pagan and Christian, endures to this day. That these two types of journey might represent different kinds of psychological experience – rational and spiritual – and help to explore the different ways in which the mind works, seemed fascinating for a project that has neurodiversity – the acknowledgement that all our minds work differently – at its heart.
The decision to stage our show outdoors came when we secured the collaboration of a community-owned wild space in Glasgow’s West End dedicated to strengthening our relationship with nature. The Children’s Wood and North Kelvin Meadow was already working with local schools and groups to promote the role of outdoor activity in development and wellbeing. This wonderful space has become home to our temporary wooden maze structure (designed in collaboration with Dutch artists Observatorium), with a permanent stone labyrinth, built with the community, at its centre. As you travel through the maze you encounter the show’s autistic performers, who relate Naoki’s insights from the book as well as their own stories. After finding your own path through the maze, and discovering more about autism as you go, you are invited finally to walk the labyrinth, a more personal experience of self-discovery for those who desire it.
We’ve called this place Naoki’s Garden. Nature is a fundamental theme in The Reason I Jump and an essential part of Higashida’s relationship with the world: “Nature calms me down when I’m furious, and laughs with me when I’m happy. You might think that it’s not possible that nature could be a friend, not really. But human beings are part of the animal kingdom too, and perhaps us people with autism still have some leftover awareness of this, buried somewhere deep down. I’ll always cherish the part of me that thinks of nature as a friend.”
The National Theatre of Scotland’s production The Reason I Jump is at the Children’s Wood and North Kelvin Meadow, Glasgow, until 23 June.