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A Brief Introduction to Augusto Boal Excerpted with permission from “Playing Boal”, edited by Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz (Routledge,1994) Brazilian theatre director, Augusto Boal, developed the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) during the 1950s and 1960s. In an effort to transform the theatre from the “monologue” of traditional performance into the “dialogue” between audience and the stage. Boal experimented with many kinds of interactive theatre. His explorations were based on the assumption that dialogue is the common healthy dynamic between all humans, that all human beings desire and are capable of dialogue, and that when dialogue becomes a monologue oppression ensues. Theatre then becomes an extraordinary tool for transforming monologue into dialogue. “While some people make theatre,” says Boal, “we are all theatre.” From his work, Boal evolved various forms of theatre workshops and performances that aimed to meet the needs of all people for interaction, dialogue, critical thinking, action and fun. While the performance modes of Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, CopIn-The-Head and the vast array of the Rainbow of Desire [see Glossary] are designed to bring the audience into active relationship with the performed event, the workshops are virtually a training ground for action not only in these performance forms, but for action in life. The “typical” theatre of the Oppressed workshop comprises three kinds of activity. The first is background information on TO and the various exercises provided by the workshop facilitator (or “difficultator”, as Boal prefers to describe it). Such information begins the workshop but is also interspersed throughout the games and exercises. Moreover, the group is brought together periodically to discuss responses to games and to ask questions of the various processes. The second kind of activity is the games. These are invariably highly physical interactions designed to challenge us and to truly listen to what we are hearing, feel what we are touching, and see what we are looking at. The “arsenal” of the Theatre of the Oppressed is extensive with more than 200 games and exercises listed in Boal’s Games for Actors and Non-Actors alone. Several years ago, Boal’s Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed in Paris (CTO – Paris) proceeded methodically through all the TO activities; the inventory took two years to cover. Ultimately, these games serve to heighten our senses and demechanize the body, to get us out of habitual behaviour, as a prelude to moving beyond habitual thinking and interacting. We also become actively engaged with other participants, developing relationships and trust, and having a very good time. Finally, the third area of activity involves the structured exercises. Although there is a kind of gray area at times when might one might call an activity a game or an exercise, the exercises are formulated so as to infuse a given structure with genuine content. These activities are designed to highlight a particular area of TO practice such as Image Theatre, Forum Theatre, Rainbow of Desire, etc. Thus, we are invited not only to imagine new possibilities and solutions, but to actively participate in them, Forum style. Group problem solving, highly interactive imagining, physical involvement, trust and fun combine to create vigorous interpersonal dynamics. As a result, we learn that we are, if not the source of our difficulties, at least the reason for their maintenance. More importantly, we are clearly the source of our mutual liberations. A Glossary of Terms from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed Cop-in-the-Head is a specific exercise amongst Boal’s therapeutic techniques. It is also the term Boal originally used to designate the entire series of TO exercises that address internalised oppressions. Boal explains that some people stopped themselves from taking political actions because they had “cops in their heads”--fears that persisted after the oppressor no longer had “real” power over them. Boal believes that all the cops in our identities and headquarters in the external world that need to be located. He sees this work as bordering on psychology but still firmly rooted in the realm of theatre. Dynamization, a fundamental goal of TO, is the term for the activation of the spectator, whether to bring a still image to life or to intervene in a forum scene. For Boal, dynamization is also connected to catharsis--but it refers to the purging of the fear that keeps the spectator from fighting oppression rather than to purging of the spectator’s desire to act (due to vicarious identification with the actors). Forum Theatre is a TO technique that begins with the enactment of a scene (or antimodel) in which a protagonist tries, unsuccessfully, to overcome an oppression relevant to that particular audience. The joker then invites the spectators to replace the protagonist at any point in the scene that they can imagine an alternative action that could lead to a solution. The scene is replayed numerous times with different interventions. This results in a dialogue about the oppression, an examination of alternatives and a “rehearsal” for real situations. Image Theatre is a series of wordless exercises in which participants create embodiments of their feelings and experiences. Beginning with a selected theme, participants “sculpt” images onto their own and others’ bodies. These frozen images are then “dynamized”, or brought to life, through a sequence of movement-based and interactive exercises. Invisible Theatre is a rehearsed sequence of events that is enacted in a public, nontheatrical space, capturing the attention of people who do not know they are watching a planned performance. It is at once theatre and real life, for, although rehearsed, it happens in real time and space and the “actors” must take responsibility for the consequences of the “show”. The goal is to bring attention to a social problem for the purpose of stimulating public dialogue. The joker is the director/master of ceremonies of a TO workshop or performance. In Forum Theatre, the Joker sets up the rules of the event for the audience, facilitates the spectators’ replacement of the protagonist, and sums up the essence of each solution proposed in the interventions. (Refer to “Theatre of the Oppressed for examples of scenarios). The term derives from the joker (or wild card) in a deck of playing cards: just as the wild card is not tied down to a specific suit or value, neither is the TO Joker tied down to an allegiance to a performer, spectator, or any one interpretation of events. Also used as a verb “to joke”. The joker is related to, but not the same as the “Joker System” The Joker System is a theatrical form developed by Boal and his collaborators at the Arena Stage in Sao Paolo between 168 and 1971. The genre is characterized by the mixing of fact and fiction, the shifting of roles during the play so that all actors play all characters, separation of actor and character through Brechtian techniques, and the introduction of the “joker” figure, both a narrator who addresses the audience directly and a “wild card” actor able to jump in and out of any role in the play. Rainbow of Desire” is the name of a specific TO exercise in Boal’s therapeutic repertoire and, for a while, referred to his whole body of therapeutic techniques. Boal recently stated that neither Cop-in-the-Head nor Rainbow of Desire was the right name for that series but he had not yet determined a name that he found more suitable. Spect-actor refers to the activated spectator, the audience member who takes part in the action. In TO there are meant to be no passive spectators; Boal emphasises the potential involvement of even those who do not physically participate, and the fact that they have at least the choice. Note: The Theatre Arts Forum and Resources includes information on literature outlining Boal’s techniques and information on workshops that are held regularly in various parts of the world. P.W.