My answer to this question is yes indeed it can and for the better! Throughout history theatre has always been censored until recently because writers and directors work wasn’t something critics and their audiences wanted to watch, it wasn’t entertaining just a piece of work that touched upon a certain subject most people ignore in their everyday lives. That was where is was wrong, no one cared about anything outside their own lives and it’s been a theatre’s job to set out to make a difference for many years and in those years so much has changed thanks to the help of theatre!
Augusto Boal’s techniques are one of the best ways to make the audience go away thinking differently about a certain subject or making them go so far as to something in their everyday lives even if it’s as simple as recycling more efficiently, it’s making a change to the world by saving the environment. Forum theatre is the main one, where the audience can throughout anytime in the play stop it and change how the character responds and acts to the situation they are in.
Proof Theatre can Change the World!
https://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/theatre-oppressed
A company who’s inspiration was Augusto Boal; they set out to make us as humans understand the worlds around us, the ones we live in as well as making a change in society as well as politically. They had a close relationship with Boal when the man was alive. Adrian Jackson, founder-director of Cardboard Citizens cooperated with Augusto when he came to the UK and even translated many of his books into English. Their work expanded across the world.
They make life changing theatre on stage, in the streets, in hostels and even in prison, their main focus being on homelessness. Many of the people they work with are or once were homeless themselves and they tell their stories through the company.
They have a range of workshops exploring Augusto Boal’s work as well as training that builds up self-confidence, many useful skills and brings a community of people together. People come from all over the world to Cardboard Citizens while Cardboard Citizens has reached out to them as well.
TEDx Talk with Selina Busby
Selina Busby has been involved with theatre for over 22 years, directing it, teaching it and performing it with many diverse people ranging from elders with dementia, men in prison, been in countries like Costa Rica in the rain forests with indigenous communities, youth theatres in London, Homeless shelter in New York, gone to India to teach students and teachers on the streets and so much more!
She is also dyslexic meaning no one believed when she grew up this would be what she ended up doing but she proved everyone wrong, theatre is a job as well as a passion! It is not easy however, she describes her job like being a nurse who has been asked to cure the plague with one tiny plaster. Of course she doesn’t regret any bit of it, she knows what she’s going, theatre can change the world, and it teaches people about all sorts of problems while also being fun and entertaining. It solves problems like global warming, poverty, homelessness, gets people to understand different communities like LGBT if they didn’t get them before. It gives people jobs, careers, enjoyment and a place of comfort.
Selina uses a slinky as an example of a cage, that cage is the box we humans live in, it’s our world that we do not wish to come out of but theatre are the gaps between the slinky which allows us to break through and go beyond what is expected of us as human beings.
Theatre brings families together, Selina goes on to talking about how men in prison who have families waiting for them on the outside can damage their relationships with the people within their family especially if they have young children. She has gone into those prisons, brought these men with children together and made them practise and rehearse a piece of children’s theatre to show off to their children who are invited to come and watch. This project also gets those fathers to reflect on their lives in prison as well as anticipating what is going to happen in the future, some go on to saying they will remain crime free and be there for their children once released. Now that is life changing! The Children’s play project gives these men an opportunity to prove that they want to change and actively participate in their children’s lives.
It also gives these men a chance to prove to their wives, husbands their partner that they are not just wasting away in prison doing their time but are activity setting out to change their lives for the greater good!
Helen's Performing Arts Life 