9 March 2023
Economics course on moral dilemmas becomes a theater play
Regardless whether we have a job to go to or not, we are all affected by how the social economy is organised. This spring, the Theatre academy puts on a play about the ethical dilemmas of working life by Johan Sandström, professor of business administration.
For about ten years, Johan Sandström held a course for economics students about ethical dilemmas in working life. The course dealt with topics such as sustainable entrepreneurship, corruption and equality in working life. The students' commitment and intelligent questions made Johan Sandström think in new directions: The course deals with general human issues that do not only affect economics students and that should be able to be conveyed in a different form. In Ulf Friberg's thesis ”Den kapitalistiska skådespelaren – aktör eller leverantör?” ("The capitalist actor – actor or supplier?") he found inspiration.
- The thesis partly touches on the same questions as my course, but from a theater perspective. I therefore asked Ulf if he would like to work on something with me, says Johan Sandström.
Interested in morality in a theater context
Ulf Friberg, who is Education Leader for the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Acting at the Theater Academy at Luleå University of Technology, immediately accepted the invitation.
- I am interested in organisation and morality in a theater context. My thesis was about how structures affect stage work. These are highly topical questions for our students. They will be forced to accept things against their will in their job as actors and they will experience that whoever speaks out risks being excluded, says Ulf Friberg, who has previously collaborated with Johan Sandström in a course where acting students learn about working life conditions in the theater industry.
An andaption of an American play
Ulf Friberg suggested that Johan Sandström should use the American play "Waiting for Lefty" from 1935 as a starting point. Johan Sandström's adaptation will be staged by the students in year one of the acting program in the spring of 2023.
- "Waiting for Lefty" deals with similar issues that Johan's students have wrestled with. In addition, the form of the play fits the phase that my students will be in then because it invites a collective process, explains Ulf Friberg.
The frame plot of the original play is a union meeting where the local club members wait for their elected representative "Lefty" who never arrives, while the union president tries to convince them not to go on strike. In Johan Sandström's adaptation, the union members have been replaced by economics students waiting for their teacher. In the absence of the teacher, they act out different scenes from everyday life in which financial dilemmas take shape.
Many points of contact with our times
- Even though the play is old, there are many points of contact between our time and the 1930s. For example, its problematisation of our individual responsibility and the unclear boundaries between private and public are still relevant today, says Johan Sandström.
It is the first time he has written a play. It has been an exciting journey to express his ideas in a completely different genre.
- My ambition has been to get under the skin of the audience. I want to tear downt the defense mechanism we all have that "this does not apply to me". I think the sensory radar has a wider range in format like this than in a lecture or a book.
Ulf Friberg agrees:
- On stage, moral dilemmas become embodied, they become personal in a more concrete way than in a text.
Johan Sandström emphasises that, although his adaptation of the play emanates from questions he has received from his economics students and will be performed by students who bring with them their experiences from and concerns about the theater industry, the play is aimed at everyone.
- We will play on the Theater Academy's stage and for students in a lecture hall at Porsön. But we would just as easily give the play to, for example, employees at SSAB. Regardless of where we work or what we study, we are affected by today's short-term, performance-oriented working life.
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