Tsawwassen’s Nicholas Harrison is drawing on his own personal experience with his new play How Star Wars Saved My Life.
The 49-year-old went through childhood physical and sexual abuse from kindergarten to Grade 4 at a religious private school. He was eventually pulled from the school and that spring saw the original Star Wars film.
The movie really framed for him right and wrong, good and evil, standing up for yourself and that a small group of people can do so much to change an established authority, he says.
“As a kid I wanted to be a Jedi,” he says.
The original Star Wars trilogy’s messages are crystal clear “but it was exactly what I needed at the time,” Harrison notes.
The play, four years in the making, began as a paper he wrote based on the use of pop culture as a therapy tool using himself as a case subject while working on a phD in theatre studies at UBC.
The play has a message of hope and is also a story of listening to children closely.
“It’s also about healing within yourself, because I don’t go a day… that I don’t think about the abuse. It’s part of me.”
The audience can take part in talkback sessions after each performance.
Some Assembly Theatre Company presents How Star Wars Saved My Life from Dec. 6 to 10 at Performance Works, 1218 Cartwright St., Vancouver. Visit www.starwarssavedmylife.com for tickets.
