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Boal Workshop
Over the last two weeks, the Year 12 Drama students have been involved in a
unique cross-generational Drama project with a small group of senior citizens from
the Bathurst community.
The project is part of a topic from the HSC Board of Studies called
'Approaches to Acting'. The students have been studying the work of the
internationally renowned dramturg, Augusto Boal. Boal, born in 1931, was one of the
most influential contemporary theatre practitioners, transforming peoples’ lives with
his revolutionary methods of engaging ‘normal’ people with actor strategies that have
the potential to enlighten them and enable them to speak out against the hypocrisies of
the political & social climate, which they struggled against.
He was a “visionary as well as a product of his times, which was the Brazil of
military dictatorship and artistic and social repression. This political man of the
theatre and very theatrical man of politics – once imprisoned for his subversive
activities – was also a passionately creative force in contemporary cultural
life…Boal’s’ story is a moving and memorable one. He has devised a unique way of
using the stage to empower the disempowered, and taken his methods everywhere
from the favelas of Rio to the rehearsal studios of the Royal Shakespeare
Company…Boal’s’ warmth and humour…demonstrate[s] [his] commitment to his
personal/ political slogan, Have the courage to be happy” (Boal, 2001, foreword).
Zoe McGirr trained in the techniques of Boal at Charles Sturt University,
Bathurst, under the tutelage of Snr. Lecturer Jerry Boland. Since then, she has become
a passionate exponent of the potential of this side of the art form.
“Teaching a topic like this one out of context can be difficult”, says Zoe
McGirr, the All Saints’ Drama teacher and creator of this unique project – “I have
taught this topic before at university level and at another school and with some
success, however, I always felt that the students needed to be encouraged to look
further beyond their own lives about what is means to feel oppressed”.
It was while attending a professional development study tour in Northern
Thailand in 2011 that Zoe was inspired to make changes to the way this topic is
delivered.
“In Chiang Dao, Northern Thailand, I worked intensively with the
Makhampom Living Theatre group…we worked with a community of Burmese
refugees, using theatre as a tool to help them understand their lives; their struggles
associated with displacement and lack of identity. Whilst not entirely Boal-esque in
their approach, I felt a lot of the theatre company’s techniques mirrored his amazing
work, and it gave me a hands-on approach that I could apply to my own teaching”,
she explains, “The important thing about bringing two very different community
groups together [there is 55 years between them] is that it must be in a spirit of
mutual respect and shared learning, and both the Seniors (citizens) and the students
both came out of the experience feeling they had learned a lot”.
The first meeting was held at the home of Margaret Bacchus, one of the
participating Seniors. The evening began with a sharing of ideas. The Seniors, who
are part of a writing group, for which Jenny Maclennan is the tutor, kicked off the
‘Introductory Workshop’ by each reading a piece of creative writing entitled ‘My Life
So Far’. Each personal story painted a picture of life growing up through the years
since the 1930’s, through the Great Depression, what life was like living in Australia
through WWII, what it meant to live under the threat of Communism through the
Cold War years, and the struggles of women in Australian society. “Hearing about all
the things they have lived through and experienced, especially hardships, made us
feel our lives have been so short lived and our worries seem comparatively trivial”
explained one of the students.
The students came into the meeting hoping to gain some insight into the
oppressions these Seniors might experience in their lives. They soon found out, that
whilst the Seniors had lived through many trials and tribulations in the past, they felt
very lucky to be living in this day and age and, despite some minor issues dealing
with new and changing technologies, were mostly happy and comfortable with their
lives. This is predominantly due to periods of great prosperity and the dramatic
changes to the roles of women in Australian society.
“It was pretty interesting”, says Zoe “on the one hand you had the students
feeling really humbled by the Senior’s stories to the point where they actually
vocalised with some embarrassment that they thought their complaints about their
own oppressions seemed incomparable and insignificant… then the Seniors would be
quick to reassure the students with their view that young people these days have much
greater expectations placed on them, than what they had ever experienced –
academically and socially.”
The students then ran a fun workshop educating the Seniors about Gen ‘Y’,
with topics such as text abbreviations, modern music and the importance that
technology plays in their lives, for example, the students each admitted that the last
thing they did before going to bed of a night and the first thing they did upon waking,
was to check their ‘Facebook’ status.
The project culminated in an ‘Assessment Workshop’, which was held in the
Drama Room on the All Saints’ College campus. The workshop began with both
groups presenting a theatrical performance. The Seniors play was set in a school and
explored the issue of repression and the wearing of school uniforms. The students’
performance piece was a comic parody highlighting the first meeting between the two
groups.
The sharing of skills and ideas on the first night is an important and informal
way of ’breaking the ice’ before the more serious forum discussion, which in this
case, was on the topic of ‘Oppression’. When both groups perform for each other at
the final meeting, it is seen as a ‘gift’ of gratitude and sharing.
The intensive Drama workshop, which followed, was devised and lead by the
Students as the formal part of their HSC assessment. In the spirit of Boal, participants
were encouraged to explore their ‘memory of the senses’ through a sequence of
activities – past oppressions were shared and re-enacted through Boal’s practices of
‘Image’ and ‘Forum’ theatre. ‘Image Theatre’ is developed using a modeling
sequence where the groups are divided in sculptors and sculptures. These static
tableaus are then dynamised in the ‘Forum Theatre’ sequence, where ‘real-life’ events
are played out on the stage. The protagonists take on the role of Director for a play of
their own life. A forum or discussion takes place where the group provides alternative
outcomes for the event and finally, the protagonist is invited to take on the role on
themselves in their own ‘memory drama’. The process is often transformative.
“I wasn’t sure what to expect”, admits Zoe, “this kind of improvisational
theatre depends on how willing the participants are to share their personal stories of
conflict…sure, there are groups in our community with much bigger issues, like the
indigenous community, the homeless, and the convicted, but I believe that this project
successfully fulfilled it’s goal of allowing two different groups to put themselves in
each others’ shoes, and in so doing, gain a deeper understanding of their own lives”.