Augusto Boal- Theatre of the Oppressed

Today in class we discussed about the very influential and famous Brazilian theatre practitioner named Augusto Boal. Boal created the Theatre of the Oppressed; this is a variety of theatrical performance methods and analyses that were developed by Boal in the 1950s in Brazil, which then attaining great success and impact dispersed to Europe and around the world. Boal’s aim was to inform his people of what’s happening in their country, how they can fight against oppression and how they can deal with their everyday life problems. Boal’s acting techniques use theatre as a medium to promote, inform and fight for political and social change. In Theatre of the Oppressed, the spectators of the performance would actually become active by interacting with the performers.  By the help of such techniques, the audience would therefore act, analyze, explore and transform they way they could deal with situations in reality. There are many different branches of Theatre of the Oppressed such as: image theatre, forum theatre, invisible, newspaper theatre, rainbow of desire and legislative theatre. It also includes further sub-branches like: analytical theatre, breaking repression as well as rituals and masks.

 

Boal used the newspaper theatre technique in order to inform and encourage his people to be aware of and understand what’s occurring in Brazil. He would this by performing such scenes in piazzas and this would help illiterate Brazilians understand what is happening in Brazil &around the world. And by educating them of this information this people learn of possible solutions of how to resolve these problems, which they may be facing themselves. 

 

In class we started using one of Boal’s techniques called newspaper theatre to do an activity. Our group was given a newspaper article about a woman who was for 7 years putting efforts into taking out Bangladeshi women from the slums and bringing them to Dubai &giving them employment. We were assigned to recreate this article by firstly telling the audience of the main informational facts of the article. And then with our heads down, each actor characterizing a certain person from the article would tell the story from their point of view. The article was very vague without much information and evidence for me to come a final, solid conclusion of the situation. Farah and Apurva opinion was that this woman was actually helping these women to have better lives and working conditions. I thought if there were claims in the article that this woman was trafficking the Bangladeshi women, then, this claim couldn’t be out of thin air, there should be some reasons why they’re blaming this woman of trafficking. Although, the article didn’t give sufficient amount of evidence about how she’s trafficking or evidence to show she’s merely helping women out of altruism.

 

Trafficking is a widespread and dangerous thing, which occurs in various parts of the world, and there are many things, which occur around the world without people knowing about them. One could never really tell what is the truth, especially with this article, which had very vague info. I didn’t really think that these women were being trafficked, but there was a possibility. I thought that for our performance, I could act as a Bangladeshi woman who as opposed to the 2 other characters I could, say that in reality I am being trafficked. This would show contrast and that media may sometimes be biased.

 

Boal’s technique of Forum Theatre really interested me as I think it as a very clever and effective way of helping people deal with their everyday life problems & how they should react to the treatment of their oppressors. 

Mime- “Act Without Words”

The class started with a bit of a discussion about Mime. Mime as we defined in class is a performance art or genre involving the acting out of a story or a character through bodily movements, symbolic gesture and facial expressions only. Mr. D said that pantomime slightly differs from mime, (&that it’s a tradition in England to play this game on St. Stevens day)- but mime and pantomime are used interchangeably. Paul Curtis, Founder/Director of the American Mime Theatre, gives the following definition: “Pantomime is the art of creating the illusion of reality by dealing with imaginary objects or situations. Its art rests on the ability to imply weight, texture, line, rhythm and force to the air around them. Mime, on the other hand, is the art of acting silently through various kinds of theatrical movement.”We talked about the most significant figures in the aspect of Mime Theater, which included, Marcel Marceau, Jacques Lecoq and Charlie Chaplin.

 

We then watched a silent play by Samuel Beckett called “Act Without Words”, which basically used mime as a performance medium to convey the story. Initially, we saw 2 sacks and a pile of clothes lying next to each other, then, a rod on wheels entered and poked the first bag a few times. After the poking, a man emerged from the 1^st sack (to the right). We see him in his nightdress so he has just woken up. The way he rose from the sack made it look like he had difficulty moving, he was old, unexercised and his body ached. The man then prayed on his knees, then took his pills. He then went over to the stack of clothes & got dressed. Once again the man did this in a very drowsy, lifeless, carless and depressed manner. The background music also conveyed this sad, depressed mood. He didn’t dress appropriately- his short wasn’t tucked in and his pants were in his shoes. All in all, the man didn’t enjoy this and it was as if he was forcibly carrying out his daily routine. Then he ate a carrot and spit it out with disgust. Also, throughout all his movements the man constantly repeated a gesture, where he held his hand up to his face and embraced his cheek with a very sad and distressed facial expression (as if he were wiping away a tear). Subsequently, the man carried the other sack on his back and pulled the bag where the clothes were. Then , with a minimal amount of agility in his movements, the man slowly took off his clothes and messily left them by his side. The man then, repeated the same actions as he did in the beginning but in reverse (i.e. he took pills, prayed then crept into his sack to sleep). I think the fact that there was a repeated pattern in the beginning of this man’s day and at the end of the day, for me symbolizes that life is a cycle where things consistently keep on repeating and us as humans have to follow that repeating things, such as a daily routine. On a larger scale, this repeating cycle is similar to a human’s life cycle, where a person is born as a baby and has no knowledge and needs help and guidance from his/ her parents and then as this person grows into an elder person (grandma/ grandpa) they also are unable to do many things themselves and require guidance from younger adults, (their children perhaps).

 

After this, the rod appeared once again and poked the other sack, and similarly another man immediately woke up/emerged from the sack. As the man woke up and started his daily routine, a fun, energetic music played in the background and this completely represented the character of this other man, in that he was a positive person and found joy and high-spiritedness even in the little things he did. This man as opposed to the previous man, began his day checking his watch then by exercising &getting energized. Then he checked his watch again. This was the other motif; repeated pattern in this man’s daily routine and this showed that he’s a very organized, precise person. He then brushed his teeth and washed himself, and brushed his hair. These were hygiene things, which in contrast the first man didn’t do. This may indicate that the first man represented a poor person from a lower class, as he did not have the toiletries to look after his hygiene, he didn’t have a watch and he didn’t know how dress appropriately. Whereas in contrast the 2^nd man did these things and this may indicate that he was form a higher social hierarchy, thus Beckett portrayed 2 representatives of a high & low social class but whether rich or poor he showed how we all go through very similar daily routines. Returning to the 2^nd man’s routine; he walked towards where the clothes were and with energy, swift movements and high spiritedness he got dressed very neatly and precisely.

After, he looked at his watch again, then noticed some dust on his sleeve and started brushing his suit and with the same brush he brushed his hair, which was quite funny. He then took a mirror and inspected himself. He then ate a carrot and took out a map from his suit &stared at it in search of something as he looked right and left for it. He may have been waiting for a train or looking for direction in the train station. Determining the directions, the man took out a compass and followed it. Similarly this man also carried the other sack on his back and pulled along the clothes bag in a funny way (towards the left again). Then, the man got undressed and unlike the previous man dumping his clothes messily, this man folded his clothes and left it in a neat pile. The man then checked his watch &just as he began he concluded his routine by exercising, washed himself, checked his time and crawled into his sack to sleep. The rod them reappeared and poked the other sack and once again the sad man woke up and started repeating his mime of his daily routine until he prayed & the scene blacked out &ended. The fact that the sad, poor man prayed showed that usually most people speak and pray to God at times of their difficulties, (poverty) and heartache such as the 1^st man was. Whereas the happy man didn’t pray and this showed he was well secured, quite wealthy and didn’t have much problems to seek for God’s help and pray.

 

In general the play was quite entertaining and very easy to understand even though everything was conveyed through body movements only. I think Beckett’s purpose of the play was to portray that as humans we all go through a daily routine which consistently repeats itself, gets tedious, useless and frustrating for some people and this of course depends upon the perspective in which one looks as life. For instance the first man was distressed, lazy and lifeless so for him his day was boring and miserable. Whereas for the 2^nd man his day was fun and cheerful as he had a positive outlook on life. But both men’s’ routines showed that they didn’t do anything of great significance and that their actions were useless and repetitive. I too, completely agree with the fact that all of our lives’ daily routines are very similar to one another and that my routine is very repetitive as well. And I think that I like sticking to how things are as I’m used to them but this varies upon various situations, as I also like to change things in my life; experience new activities and learn new skills. As I’m more of an optimistic person I try to look on the bright side of life as much as I can, since life’s too short and must be lived at its fullest! 🙂