Ron Wiener and Mala Bali have developed a way of using storytelling to enable participants to share their understanding of and feelings about life as it is lived today.

“The old world is dying. The new one is slow in appearing. In this light and shadow, monsters arise.” — Gramsci

The structure is quite simple: there is a warm-up, followed by a sociometric decision as to which story will be chosen. The teller of that story then moves into the role of an observer after choosing someone to play them. One of the facilitators will then find a creative way of bringing the story to life, with other members of the group invited to play different roles. When the story is finished, participants share from their roles and then move into sharing how the story has affected them.

The approach is linked to a variety of storytelling structures:

a) Traditional storytelling, part of an oral history, where storytellers help a group explore and learn about their culture. Here, there is usually no active audience involvement.

b) Playback theatre, where a small group of actors creatively interpret a story from an audience.

c) Protagonist sociodrama, where one person’s story is chosen to represent an underlying theme for the group. An explicit aim here is therapeutic.

d) Sociodrama, where a group comes together to explore a topic through role-taking and system analysis.

e) Improvisational drama, where the action moves fluidly from one role to another.

We do not see our work as primarily therapeutic, which is why the storyteller remains in the role of an observer.

There would then be a break, followed by:

“We are in trouble because we do not have a good story… we are in between stories… we have not learned the New Story.” — Thomas Berry

Another person would then be chosen to tell a story of the future, using the same structure as before.