Augusto
Boal is a global theatre guru. His Theatre of the Oppressed and
associated methods are used in mainstream and alternative theatre
work, in political and social emancipation work and in therapeutic
settings.
The
reader is wary of gurus and approaches this wondrous book cautiously.
Theatre
is the first human invention and also the invention that paves the
way for all other inventions and discoveries.
The
reader considers this sentence good enough for a t-shirt. The book is
full of startlingly delicious one-liners.
The
human being not only 'makes' theatre: it 'is' theatre.
So
we think light and we talk matter.
The
book is divided into two sections: theory and practice. It is laid
out in a welcoming, readable fashion. The reader enjoys the
occasional arcane term, often
usefully glossed in the wide margins: oneiric; aesthetic;
concretisation; ascesis; osmosis; metataxis; agora; polysemies.
The
reader has never met Augusto Boal, but feels sure that he is a fine
man. The book passes the Holden Caulfield test as presented in The
Catcher in The Rye
by J.D. Salinger. You have enjoyed the book if, after reading it, you
want to talk to the person who wrote it.
The
book cites four forms of catharsis, all of which are forms of
purgation or purification. Catharsis in Theatre of The Oppressed is a
route to disequilibrium, which prepares the way for action.
The
rehearsal of an action is in itself an action, the practice of an
action then to be practised in real life.
In
Forum Theatre an intervention is said to be magic when, in order for
it to succeed, it changes the given of the reality.
At
times, in the case studies written up throughout, the reader senses
Augusto Boal seeking to lead/direct/explain in the direction of
reading
actions and behaviour so that they are 'true'.
In
theatre, the problem is not one of knowing whether someone is lying
or telling the truth:
the problem is seeing that someone is in the process of doing
something, of acting. For even if the protagonist is lying, the
action is always true.
The
reader notes that the protagonist, the human, is always lying, in the
sense of storying the world in order to make sense, not truth, of it.
Here
the task is not to ask why; here, things are as they are, quite
simply because they are as they are – but they might also be
different.
Is
it possible to gain entertainment from such theatre work?
The reader reads
that Augusto Boal seems
critical of a man who simply wants to put on a show. This connects
with the long tradition of treating play-actors, show-people and
theatre makers with suspicion, for
they
are false and untrustworthy.
Because
of the slowness, each gesture appears magnified; by their secretive
tone, the words reveal their true content.
The
reader wonders at the aggrandisement of play-acting techniques into
prescribed, almost ritual, forms, no matter how much emphasis is
placed on openness.
A
rite is a conscious spectacle designed to be seen.
Even
if Augusto Boal does not want to be a guru, do such language and
theatre acts, as this book and the techniques within it, draw
acolytes to them, who may use the knowledge
'over' others rather than 'with' others?
Is
Shakespeare the reader's guru?
the purpose of
playing,
whose end, both
at the first and now, was and is,
to
hold, as 'twere,
the mirror up to nature;
to show Virtue
her own feature,
Scorn
her own image,
and the very age
and body of the time
his
form and
pressure.
The reader wonders
if the book could be presented less grandly as a work-sheet of
a few pages of double-sided A4.
The
methods cited
are useful to mainstream theatre makers, whether the work is
process-orientated or production-orientated. Or both.
The reader enjoys
the book and will take its wisdom into the future.
The
Rainbow of Desire:
Augusto Boal; book; Routledge; London; 1995
Hamlet:
William Shakespeare; Act 3, Scene 2; stage-play; London; 1600
www.facebook.com/DaveDugganWriter
No comments:
Post a Comment