Psychology Today

The term “drama therapy” is not well known to professionals in the performing arts or the general public. That lack of awareness may soon change with the release of the critically-acclaimed documentary feature Procession, directed by Robert Greene, about the restorative journey of six men whose faith in religion and virtue was shattered when they were children by the abuse of Catholic priests and their church.

Used with permission of Netflix, 2021

Joe reads a letter to Terrick, in role of Joe as a young boy.

Source: Used with permission of Netflix, 2021

One unique aspect of this project was that a drama therapist, Monica Phinney, was present throughout and that the theory and practice of drama therapy informed the filmmaking process. Greene also invited to his supportive team the men’s lawyer, Rebecca Randles, and her colleague, Sasha Black, as well as the child actor, Terrick Trobough, who served as an alter ego and support for the men. Greene established a fully collaborative experience wherein the men scripted and storyboarded their own scenes and choose their own settings recapitulating encounters with their abusers.

In preparing this article, I first contacted Monica Phinney. She connected me to Netflix publicists, Monica Sheldon and John Oliveira, who arranged an interview with Robert Greene. Through the generosity of Netflix, I was able to interview Joe Eldred, one of the six survivors highlighted in the film.

From Phinney, I learned that the group worked together for three years to create, dramatize, and film scenes depicting the mens’ abuses. Her role was not to engage directly in drama therapy with the men, but to educate and support them on their journeys toward recovery. Her work was informed by the idea that drama therapy, a method of psychological treatment through theatrical processes, provides a degree of aesthetic distance through which to safely rehearse, perform and reflect upon an unresolved moment of personal and collective trauma.

Robert Greene, who experimented with intense reenactments of trauma in several earlier films, became aware of the psychological burden he and his actors carried. Deciding it was time to work with a clinically-trained professional, he researched drama therapy, eventually choosing Phinney, who provided a means of psychological containment and safety. Throughout the work, Greene realized that the process of therapeutic performance mirrored his own creative process as filmmaker and editor.

Used with permission from Netflix, 2021

Performing faith: From victims to survivors

Source: Used with permission from Netflix, 2021

When asked why he made Procession, Greene replied, “I explore the inner truth of the person’s life in order to give something back.” When I inquired further, he spoke about what the men gave him—an understanding that a conventional notion of healing, laced with pity, is empty. Greene learned from his cast that healing is about doing good work and stepping back from the shame engendered by abuse. Greene gave that understanding back to the men—providing them the opportunity to do good work without pity or shame.

In our conversation, Greene mentioned his debt to the theater artist Bertolt Brecht, whose theory of distancing provides audiences, “an intellectual response so they are not manipulated by emotion.” In my own drama therapy work, I draw upon Brecht’s ideas to explain how drama therapy helps clients discover a balance between thought and emotion as they move into and out of roles. In making Procession, Greene modulated emotion and thought through careful editing. For example, Greene cut from an intense reenactment of a priest’s seduction of a young boy to scenes of survivors driving in cars, searching for the exact locations of their abuse. Parenthetically, Greene referred to the iconic documentarian, Albert Maysles, who noted that sometimes the most dramatic moments occur while waiting for something to happen. Sometimes, such moments provide relief and time for a viewer to consider the reasons why people and institutions that profess virtue sometimes act abusively.

I expressed concern about Terrick, the child actor, and wondered how he dealt with the intense emotionality of playing the role of the abused child and witnessing the survivors re-experience their traumas. My concern was ameliorated by seeing that Terrick was fully supported throughout by cast and crew as well as both his parents, who appeared in the film in auxiliary roles. In addition, I noted that Terrick was a strong support for the men and checked in with them after a scene to make sure that they felt safe.

In the penultimate scene, several of the survivors, although aware that their search for justice is incomplete, speak to the changes they have experienced. Mike tells his deceased father that he will never give up his quest for justice. Ed takes a sledgehammer and tears down the set he created to represent the psychological landscape of his abuse. He plans to use Procession as a bridge toward a hard discussion with his daughter. Although Dan’s abuser remains at large, he symbolically breaks from the past by throwing a fishing rod to the ground representing the tainted gift that bound him to his abuser.

Joe is one of several survivors who returns to the common location of his abuse, a lake house long since abandoned by the abusive priest and now occupied by a local family. While on the porch looking in, Dan asks Joe if he wants to dramatize the terrifying dream he has experienced nightly since his abuse in this very house. Joe emphatically says no. He wants this to be a ‘happy place.’ As viewers, we later learn that since Joe dared to step foot onto the porch of the lake house, his nightmares completely ceased. His setting of limits provided the distance needed for a fuller transformation.

In the final scene of Procession, Joe returns to the church where his abuse began. He faces Terrick playing his abused self. He feels completely transported, as if he is actually speaking to himself at 10-years-old. And yet, he simultaneously realizes that he exists in the present, capable of moving forward with the safe holding of his supporters.

Joe takes a breath and reads a letter he composed to his once innocent alter ego:

“Dear Joe, this is the hardest thing to do…There are still… memories that weigh upon my mind…It’s taken me nearly 40 years to understand that, although time continues to march forward, I continue to be anchored in the past to you…It’s an incredible sacrifice you’re about to make. But you need to know that your sacrifice has saved me…You chose to live and to love, and in return, you chose to be loved…Superman was your epic hero…That’s exactly what you have become… an advocate for youth and fighter for truth and justice…”

Terrick very gently supports Joe, who is filled with emotion after reading the letter. Joe, in turn, asks Terrick, “How are you?” Terrick, all of 13 years old, responds, “Good.” He knows he has done good work. Joe ends the scene and indeed the film by saying, “Make no mistake, you are the epic hero in the story of us.”

Procession is about the performance of faith, once upon a time crushed by church and churchmen wearing costumes of righteousness. It reveals the possibilities of restoring that faith by engaging in an aesthetic journey, informed by drama therapy, toward the belief that shame can be modified by good work and the helping hands of a loving community. Procession is also a gift to an intrepid filmmaker from his actors and helpers who felt seen and held by a man of the aesthetic cloth, willing to take creative and therapeutic risks. Finally, the film is a nod to Monica Phinney and the supportive team that understands that pain and abuse are unavoidable scenes in the performance of everyday life, but that in replaying and revising them, change is not only possible, but inevitable.