Theatre of the oppressed

Augusto Boal's 'Theatre of the Oppressed' sprang from the need to give a theatrical social voice to the oppressed people of Brazil during the late 1950's into the 1960's.

Brazil experienced a military coup in 1964 followed by an even more repressive one in 1968. Boal's idea was to foster democracy through both theatrical work and political activism seeking a sociodramatic means of collectively surviving, perhaps even challenging the harsh conditions under dictatorship. Boal designed a new format, 'forum theatre' that gave spectators themselves opportunity to discover their own solutions to their collective problems.

Through storytelling techniques, Boal worked with groups to create a scene in which a protagonist has an option given they are not exercising. They then physically replace the protagonist in the scene and improvise their alternative action thus rehearsing for social change. In essence, this form of social theatre was meant to:

• Steer the oppressed without direct confrontation with the police

• Motivate the people into action

• Give a message about freedom

In 1971 having worked in opposition to the military regime, Boal was arrested at the Arena Theatre, jailed and tortured. After three months he was released with the warning that if his political actions resumed, he would not survive a second arrest. He moved to Argentina where he lived until 1976. Between 1971 and 1976, Boal further developed techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed with his 'image theatre' the result. This technique privileges physical expression over the spoken word where the human body is used as an expressive tool to represent, non-verbally, a wide repertoire of feelings, ideas and attitudes. This form reflects Boal's belief in the body as one's most essential tool in transforming physical sensations into a communicable language and altering everyday space into a theatrical arena or aesthetic space.

In Argentina, once again forbidden to partake in activist theatre under an increasingly repressive regime, Boal devised 'invisible theatre' as a way to continue stimulating debate on current political issues. Staged in public spaces and masquerading as real life, actors rehearsed scenes that uncovered social injustices, drawing people's attention and leading to impassioned discussions. The audience never aware that they were watching theatre, were able to transcend the silencing effect of the 'cop-in-the-street' concept.

One further technique used by Boal is called 'the rainbow of desire' which works as a way of offering a systematic psychotherapeutic technique to the participants. An example of this is a demonstration of an oppressive situation being experienced by one of the participants. Others are chosen to role play the situation as outlined by the participant who tells them what they must do and say in the demonstration. At some point, a key moment of internal oppression must come into play. The participant observers are invited then to come forward to demonstrate physical images of slices of my behaviour, e.g the weaknesses and strengths they see. Images that are seem as accurate representations of the sub-text of the participant's behaviour are kept for observation.

References:

Boal, A. (1992). 'Games for Actors and Non Actors,' London:Routledge.

Schutzman, M, & Cohen-Cruz, J. (eds.) (1994). 'Playing Boal,' London:Routledge.

 

The theatre of Brecht

Since 1956, the ideas of Brecht have revolutionised playwriting, production techniques and acting methodology but it is only since his death in 1956 that this occurred. He wrote his first play in 1918 ('Baal') and formalised his writing style in 1920 with 'A Man is a Man' and 'The Threepenny Opera'. When the Nazis began their rise in Germany in 1933, he left to live in Scandinavia where he wrote many of his works. Later he moved to Santa Monica in California until the end of WW11.

During the 1920's German theatre received inspiration from the director Erwin Piscator with whom Brecht formed an alliance. Both men opposed the traditional late nineteenth century and early twentieth century focus on Realism, Naturalism and the orientation towards the 'suspension of disbelief'. Instead, they favoured a socialist theatre in which the audience remained aware that they were in a theatre absorbing messages and ideas. They documented plays by prefacing scenes with electronically or mechanically projected captions explaining themes and exhorting action.

The expressionistic technique of constructing a series of disjointed, episodic scenes was used as a desirable method for abolishing suspense. Other important points to consider include:

• Music was used to neutralise emotion rather than intensify it

• Atmospheric lighting was used instead of general illumination

• Actors worn everyday dress and props were blatant theatre properties

• Scenery was constructivistic in style using stairs, scaffolding, treadmills etc

• Film was used as background scenery with projected images of places and people of specific historical periods to explain social circumstance (Historification)

• The Epic play presents historical matter from the viewpoint of a single storyteller

• Changes in time and place are frequent bridged sometimes by a single sentence or passage

• The narrator's primary function to observe action and to report events

• Subject matter always based on history, the past is emphasised to place present in perspective

• The concept of 'alienation' important š to 'make strange' to the audience those concepts and understandings they may have become complacent about

• Use of satire, comic dance and mime often used

• Influenced by Asian theatre with its highly complex symbolic systematic gestures

 

Brecht outlined a series of acting techniques related to character and emotion:

• Perform with an awareness of being watched

• Look at the floor and openly calculate movement

• Separate vocalisation from gesture š make them disconnected in time

• Remain uninvolved with other actors, physically and emotionally

• Stand and move in a simple, loosely held together group

• In order to better instruct your audience, freely acknowledge their diversity by speaking to the various collective units as well as individuals within the unit

• Address the audience directly from centre stage in full front presentational fashion

• Speak your lines as if they were a quotation and in the manner of delivering a speech in the third person

• Occasionally speak stage directions aloud to intensify unemotional acting

• Be critical of your character as though all of your actions had occurred in the past

• Change roles with other actors during rehearsals and even during performances to purify and conceptualise ideas and to remain unattached to any role

• Stand in front of a mirror and meticulously study your movements and gestures

• Employ robotic, mechanical, dreamlike and other non realistic techniques

• Utilise an acting style absolutely opposed to what you normally would use for the scene in order to create fresh values.

Reference

Crawford, J. (1983). Acting in person and in style. Dubuque, Iowa: W.C.Brown Co. Pub.