The Art of Empathy We Call Acting

Tonight I am going to write a bit about my own family, focusing on my 14-year-old son, who is about to graduate from Middle School and therefore is enroute to a big change in life, i.e., High School, several months hence.

As the oldest in a cluster of three, whose parents painfully separated (and later divorced) six years ago, he's spent almost half of his young life looking out for others -- each of his parents, individually, and both of his younger siblings.

He is one of the most sensitive kids I've known, and that's saying something, because not only would I describe all six of my children as sensitive, but because I'm drawn to sensitivity in others, and many, many children exude sensitivity of all kinds.

In his case, to be more specific, I've always felt the heaviest weight he carries is a deep sense of empathy for others. It was clear from a frighteningly young age that here was a fellow who identifies easily with others, understands their main vulnerabilities, and all too often takes on their battles as if they were his responsibility to fix.

Once, during a dispute with his little brother, he said, "Don't you know the worst, the most painful insult you could ever hand me would be to call me a bully!" (He'd just acted very much like a bully, BTW, toward said little brother, but that's another matter.)

That same little, adoring brother was there with him tonight, which was opening night at Fort Mason for The Bourgeois Gentleman by Moliere. Before hand, filled with nervous energy, the boys ran out the piers and gazed at Alcatraz.

Once inside the theater, when the lights were off, my sweet, empathic child played the manipulative, deliciously unctuous character of Dorante, a count whose intelligent use of language is deployed to get all he wants while ripping off the bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain, a pompous fool played tonight by one of his classmates so brilliantly as to bring tears - mostly of laughter -- to all of our eyes.

My own tears were watching my son fake being evil, because to be truthful, this rakishly handsome young man, tall, with a deep voice and the physical grace only athletes and dancers possess, is one of the least evil persons I have yet encountered in my real life.

It was quite a performance, and only the first of two. Every parent, or adult friend, of a youngster easily knows how I feel tonight. There is a certain swelling pride as we watch this next generation assume its place in the natural order of things. To be clear, every single one of those eighth-graders performed beautifully tonight, in my eyes, and I would be very proud to be the father of any of them.

So, yes, I am proud of my own, but I am in awe of what we all, collectively, can produce with years of the absolute hardest of all work -- parenting. The planet will be in good hands, I sense, once these guys are in charge.

As always, it is through the gift of art (and art teachers) that we get to see them most clearly, for only in art can they all assume different roles, thereby experiencing the ultimate gift of empathy -- living in the shoes of another.

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