Street Roots • Jan. 13-19, 2017
News
“Displaced” will premiere Jan. 20 and
run through Jan 28 at Abbey Arts, 7600
N Hereford Ave., as part of the Fertile
Ground Festival: Portland’s Festival of
New Works.
you’re not I didn’t know anything about any
other cultures or anybody who wasn’t like
me. At UCLA, it was a bunch of white girls.
I transferred to World Arts and Cultures. I
wanted to study the dialects and accents of
spoken English all over the world. So, it
started as dialect studies that I funded and
supported as a street musician and voice
actor. People who appreciated the music the
most and the people I enjoyed playing for
the most were people who lived on. the
street.
A.W.: You were in such close proximity to
people experiencing homelessness.
E J.S .: I was in their living room. I was
very grateful for the conversations with all
of them. There were times when I was one
of them - I would spend the night out there.
I usually just stayed with people. During a
lot. of my trips around the states, I had a
vehicle I stayed in. I lived in an ambulance
for a while, which was one of my favorite
homes.
A.W.: W/zy was that?
W
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Photo courtesy o f E liza Jane Schneider
Hearing voices
South Park’s Eliza Ja n e Schneider delivers the
voices and stories o f homelessness in new show
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
STAFF W R IT E R
________________________
liza Jane Schneider is best known for
voicing nearly all of the female
characters on Comedy Central’s
“South Park.”
She speaks with passion and nuance
about a topic that South Park’s characters
would spurn - homelessness.
For 20 years, Schneider traveled the
world, performing as a street musician and
voice actor. She met numerous people living
on the streets along the way and she
recorded interviews with them. “It makes
me feel alive to listen to strangers,”
Schneider said. “It’s my religion.”
She is now using those recordings as the
backbone of a new, multi-media, one-woman
show to premiere in Portland during the
Fertile Ground Festival later this month.
“Displaced,” a collaboration between
Schneider and CompassWorks theater, tells
B
the stories of the homeless people she met
during her travels using the interviews she
conducted. On stage, Schneider augments
the interviews with her own performance,
using voice, fiddle and guitar.
Schneider, who moved to Portland last
April, said that during her travels, she often
relied upon people who were homeless for
directions, advice on places to stay and on
places to avoid.
“They know what’s up,” she said.
“They’ve got their eyes open. There’s a
depth of human understanding that you
acquire ... when you go through a certain
level of trauma.”
Amanda Waldroupe: What made you
w ant to travel around the world and interview
people while you worked as a street musician?
Eliza Jane Schneider: I went to UCLA
to study theater. You learn that to be an
actress, you need to be somebody that
E.J.S.: It had AC outlets. It had power. It
had IV hook ups, so, I could hang my
nou^plants. Ithas the sifens and lights',
which were fun. Sometimes, I would go on
the PA and sing opera. I loved living on the
road, I didn’t have the best situation growing
up. A sociopathic Vietnamese orphan was
my adopted brother. My parents adopted a
war orphan who was literally psychotic.
Home wasn’t always the safest place for me.
I lived in an ambulance. I lived in a bread
truck that was a 1964 Metro International
Bread Truck. I had a Eurovan for a while. I
lived in a succession of vehicles while I was
on the road here. When I traveled in other
countries, I tended to stay with people.
A.W.: What sort o f music would you play
on the streets?
EJ.S.: I called my album “Gypsy Grass.”
I identify the melodies that come out of my
violin as somewhat Middle Eastern
sounding.
A.W.: What did you learn from the
recordings?
EJ.S.: You certainly cannot separate the
sound of thè voice from the voice of a
person.
A.W.: What do you mean by that?
E J.S.: There are a few definitions of
voice. There is the sound of the voice,
which is what I was studying at the time -
, the literal sounds people make. I learned
that those sounds are intrinsically tied to
what’s important to the person. The
questions that got the dialect to come out
the most pronounced were, tell me
something of emotional significance, what’s
important to you, tell me something from
your childhood. The sounds of their voices
Page 7
became the most authentic when they were
speaking their truth. I was very impacted by
the stories that people had to tell. I started
studying dialect and ending up studying
humanity and using music to not only fund
my travels but as a means of re-gifting.
People were giving me a great deal of
understanding. People were giving me their
stories. I felt so grateful for that.
A.W.: What sorts o f stories did you hear?
EJ.S.: One of the most meaningful is the
story of a guy who’s not actually homeless.
He gives water to homeless people in San
Diego. He spends every day giving socks,
listening to people. He’s 85, on Social
Security and still goes out every day to give
water.
I talked to a Nigerian woman whose
mother used to beat her and put hot chilies
in her eyes and leave her tied up for days to
a tree. The “area boys” raped her
repeatedly. But she put herself through film
school. There’s a lot of redemption in the
stories I’m bringing. Resilient people that
come back from the most incredible trauma.
I interviewed a man in Liverpool who was
kicked out for being gay. His mother said, “I
hate you David, and so does your dad.” That
begs the question - what is home? Does he
have to identify with that family as being his
home? His mother? So many people on the
streets are suffering from a broken heart.
We have this issue in America, where we
ignore people and humans suffering on the
streets because we’re scared or feel like WQ
can’t do anything. It seems endemic to
Western countries.
A.W.: What do you attribute that to - is it
the mentality in the United States that we have
to pu ll ourselves up by our bootstraps?
EJ.S.: I think it’s a practical matter of
travel. Even here, we were tribal before
transportation. I think in some of the third
world countries where some people are on
foot, they know everybody. It’s a village and
people take care of everybody in the village.
It would be bizarre to have someone’s family
member ostracized.
A.W.: So, you’re saying that homelessness is
not so much whether one lives on the streets,
but i f we’re part o f a village or community.
EJ.S.: That’s the conclusion I’m coming
to. I think your sense of home comes more
from a sense of belonging than it comes
from a sense of house, or where you were
bom or where you’re from. In a lot of Third
World countries, they don’t have as much of
a homeless problem, because people take
care of their families. They’re more closer
knit. You know where you mother is and
even if she is crazy, someone is paying
attention to her.
A.W.: What do you hope people learn from
watching the play?
E J.S.: I want people to get to know the
people in their neighborhood. Acknowledge
each other. If people can be listened to and
be heard, then I’ve done something. Being
seen and heard is one of the greatest gifts
people can receive. It’s so rare to really be
listened to. It brings about powerful healing.