Augusto Boal

Theatre of the Oppressed

Augusto Boal, who in my opinion was an extremely clever man, created “Theatre of the Oppressed” as a means to provoke social and political change with techniques that bond the audience to the performer. It gets them thinking about oppressive behaviour and how it affects the world around us. They become more then onlookers, the techniques get them involved, make them explore and change the reality in which they are living. He first found it in the 1970s in Brazil his home country and got his inspiration from educator and theorist Paulo Freire, Brecht and Stanaislavski. His work soon spread round the world.

“Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it”

Augusto Boal, Games for Actor’s and Non-Actors 1992

The quote above I believe in 100%, theatre can provide people with life changing skills, entertainment and make the world as a whole a better place. It can help create a place of comfort for some people, while others go for the adrenaline rush when seeing actors perform on stage, I’m one of those people. Theatre is used in all kinds of jobs even in ones that don’t necessarily involve being active every single day. An office job for example as team building exercises they’d use acting to create a scene of some sort and many other games used by theatres. Augusto Boal was known for getting those kinds of people involved in his workshops, actors and non actors.

Image Theatre

Still images are what Image Theatre is all about. The participants work together or individually to mold their bodies into a form that shows emotions that tie in with a certain type of situation, perhaps falling in love or the anger of getting dumped. This is all done without speaking, they are like statues. The images are then brought to life once again going back to oppression internal or external, subconscious thoughts and feelings.

My class was put into groups and we had to create these images going from a real image, one people could relate to or understand to an ideal image that satisfies the mind, what we as humans believe is right.

We did mental health, one of us sitting away in the corner their back to the group of us having a good time, their head in their hands. That was our realistic image before creating our ideal one in which the group go to the broken person and crowd round them giving them comfort and support.

Finally we did it frame by frame, going from realistic to ideal by adding in another still image in between the two which showed the group noticing the suffering friend.

It is a very simple drama game for people who are confident in acting and for those who are not or have no experience whatsoever.

Invisible Theatre

As in its title, Invisible Theatre is one that does not wish to be seen or known as a piece of theatre but a scene that people believe is real and have no idea that they are in fact an audience witnessing a piece being put on by actors in a public place. The actors goal is to make it as realistic as possible to provoke a response from the observers. Would they get involved or just proceed to watch or ignore it outright?

The piece needs to be loud enough so its heard and noticed by people but not so over dramatic that it could looked staged. Bystanders will get involved because to them it is real life and that’s what makes Invisible theatre so unique, it achieves what other theatre cannot. It removes all barriers between the actor and spectator, getting them involved in a situation that they would otherwise go out of their way to probably avoid.

My teacher and a second year in my college acted out a scene in front of my class as we worked in groups, about how our dance teacher threatened to quit after being mistreated by the second years in her lesson; my class being it was happening right in front of us couldn’t help but listen in. The second year came to apologise for her class’s terrible behaviour and Natalie our teacher announced how it shouldn’t be her coming to apologise but the people who stepped out of line. My class was horrified at the thought of our dance teacher leaving being she was such a good teacher and as a response we were going to get to the bottom of the situation and find out who exactly hurt our teacher’s feelings. When they split the beans about the whole situation we were very put off and couldn’t get over the fact that they had just done that. That was the first time we got introduced to Invisible Theatre and Natalie got her response out of us.

Forum Theatre

A play or scene showing some sort of oppression on the main character. It is performed twice by the actors; the first time performing the whole story and the second time the audience (spec-actors) are allowed to shout stop anytime and change how the main character deals with the situation by becoming them while the rest of the cast have to mould themselves around the new main character but always try to oppress them. The main character as a result as to try and come up with a solution to said problems.

In groups we had to come up with a short story about a main character being oppressed. In my group we came up with the idea of a anxious girl starting her first day of school (secondary school.)

Scene 1:

Mum and dad talking about girl in kitchen while she’s eating her breakfast at the table. They hope for her to make new friends this only makes the girl feel worse, now she feels pressured by her own parents.

Scene 2:

Girl in class, another student offers her help, she refuses.

Scene 3:

It’s lunchtime and the girl goes to buy food, gets picked on by some bullies and takes her money. The bulling carries on.

Scene 4:

Parents drop girl off at school however once they’re gone she turns round and leaves not wanting to go back there.

Scene 5:

The head teacher’s office, parents and girl are there with the head talking about her absence, why hasn’t she been in for the past week. The girl completely shuts down.

Games for Actors and Non Actors

Columbian Hypnosis: a game that involves a group of people where someone uses their hand to control another person’s every move. If in a bigger group each person is leading another person with their hand while also having to focus on the hand controlling them.

My group tried it, in pairs, then threes and finally all together which was so strange because it literately felt like I was hypnotized by Sue’s hand as it was my only focus.

Tunnel of eyes: someone walks down a hall of bodies, making eye contact with everyone. We tried it like that before changing it up a bit and making the walls tighter to get through making the person walking through more claustrophobic and we also tried it where the person walking didn’t look at anyone. The first time round they didn’t faze me because me as myself don’t care what other people think about me, but when I had to slide through the tight gap the second time I didn’t like it because it reminded me of being on a busy underground train having no room to move.

Human Knot

Fight for Land

Cross the River

Pushing against Each Other

Space and Territory

Devils and Angels

Mirrors

Empires

Sculptor and Clay