Oppressed Theater Series: 20 Fundamental Questions About Forum Theater

Originally published on: https://www.douban.com/group/topic/30646059/

Twenty fundamental topics on Forum Theatre

in Augusto Boal: Games for Actors and Non-actors

Translator: Tu Erqian

——Translator's Note: This is just an excerpt, refined and summarized by the translator, for reference only.

1 Is it oppression or attack? (opression or agression?)

Let's imagine the following scenario: A man is in a gas chamber, just minutes away from his death. The executioner opened the gas valve. Elsewhere, another man was tied up and blindfolded, standing in front of the Spitfire. After a few seconds, the officer ordered: Fire!

Can we use such a situation as the beginning of forum theatre? I don't think so.

Of course, these are extreme examples. But in fact many plays do not give any possibility of choice. Forum Theater wants to create a gap and open up the road to liberation, not to make people resist the high wall that has to be surrendered.

The above example cannot be used in forum theater, because it presents not an oppression that can be fought, but an attack that cannot be avoided.

2 The style of the model (in the Forum Theatre)

When the core issue is concrete, the whole play tends to be more realistic.

The most important thing is that, above all other things, the Forum Theater should be a good-looking theater first, and the play itself brings a pleasant beauty. My personal favorite plays are developed through various figurative theaters.

In my opinion, style is unimportant - the style should be chosen based on the actual content. There are three forms of ritual: 1/ real ritual, 2/ inferred ritual, 3/ metaphorical ritual.

3 Do questions in the theatre have to be urgent? Simple or complex?

If the problem is presented clearly, concretely and urgently, then the outcome of the discussion will also be concrete and urgent.

The lack of precise problems only arises when the forum only analyzes the situation and does not "synthesize" solutions.

4 Do we have to achieve an outcome?

I believe a good debate is more important than the resulting method.

5 Is there a need for a play with future action?

I think, in the ongoing example, it is necessary to describe the part of the future action, because this part will soon be experienced in the actual action. It can be counted as a 'rehearsal' of the actual action.

6 Model or anti-model? Error or doubt?

For a while, I thought that the word model already contained the connotation of "the way, the way to follow", but after I used the "anti-pattern", I came back to the model, because I found that the model can also be used for discussion , not following.

Audiences often point out that it is "wrong" for so-and-so as the protagonist's spectator. This is only for the audience, not for us. In conclusion, it is appropriate to say that we "doubt" his/her practices as the oppressed.

7 The role of the guest

*Guests must refrain from any behavior that may manipulate or influence the audience.

*Guests do not make decisions based on their own personal opinions.

*You must always return the audience's doubts to the audience, they are the ones who can make the decision.

*Customers must always pay attention to the "impossible" (magic) method.

*Your physical position is very, very important.

*Finally, as I already mentioned, the guest must be "Socrates" - dialectically, by asking questions, by questioning, he/she must help the audience to refine their thoughts and prepare their actions.

8 Dramatic, or reflective?

I think it depends on the purpose of the performance, and the environment in which it is performed. It depends on the number of people in the theater, and the specific conditions, such as venue, props, etc.

9 Stage settings (staging)

Although many troupes are poor, the setting is still very needed. The more attention is paid to the aesthetics of the theater, the more it can stimulate the participation of the audience.

10 warm-up features

In addition to warming up, warm-up exercises can bring together a group of people, a kind of "community".

But this is not required. In any case, what really warms people up is the theme of the show and the show itself.

11 Features of Actors

Actors have to be very, very dialectical. They want to make the audience on stage feel that it is not so easy to resist oppression, but they also want to encourage him/her to break through the oppression. That is, blocking, and inflating. Must know how to catch and throw the ball, know how to stay and move forward, how to be more creative. They must have no fear of losing their character (watching on the sidelines).

People learn from teaching (teaching and learning). Teaching, teaching is learning, otherwise it would not be called pedagogy.

12 about the repetition of the play

When the spectators are active on the stage, the play is constantly repeated. So the play can sometimes seem dull. One suggestion: with each repetition, the actor picks up the tempo a little bit.

13 Macroverse and Microverse

Sometimes the solution cannot be solved on the stage of the play, what should I do? For example, in one incident, the police were called again, the lawyers were called again, even relatives and friends...even the whole theater people became part of the stage...

Bois said that was a good thing.

14 How to substitute a character without replacing it with another person

The audience must respect the givens of the question itself:

First, one cannot change the social environment in which the problem lies.

Second, people cannot change the motivations of characters.

In the end, what can change are the characteristics of the motivation: how to do what that person has to do - that's the problem.

15 What is "good" oppression?

My feeling is that all oppression is equally important.

While some oppression is minimal to others, when oppression is on everyone's head, it is suffering. The purpose of the theatre of the oppressed is to help us liberate ourselves.

So I don't think there should be a category for oppression.

Certainly some oppressions are more brutal than others.

So we should consult the audience and try to present all the oppression in the forum theatre as long as it is: real oppression, experienced by participants who desperately want to be liberated from it.

16 Who can replace whom?

Only the spectator who has the same experience of oppression as that character can replace the oppressed protagonist to find a new method or form of liberation.

If the spectator does not have the same experience and wants to replace the oppressed protagonist, we can clearly see that this is a kind of "advice" theater: one person is "teaching" another person what to do - like evangelism.

Forum Theatre has its own rules, which must be respected. But if, occasionally, the audience decides to change these rules at a specific time for some specific reason, you can change it. However, there are two basic principles that cannot be changed: the spectators must be the protagonists of the dramatic action, and these spectators must play the "protagonist" with their own lives. This is the most important thing.

Julian Beauvoir asked (Beauty's son): "In 'Rainbow of Desire,' you say that we all have inner selves, all inner saints and demons, and that each has the potential of all human beings. What about you? Explanation: Only the oppressed can play the protagonist of the oppressed, if they have the full potential of the human being?"

I believe that oppression is justifiable when we are faced with specific situations, such as strikes, wage negotiations, etc., and only the oppressed in it know how to do it - we must have knowledge of the specific situation. However, when we face less specific oppression, or use figurative theatre, anyone can replace anyone because we are dealing with feelings, emotions, subjectivity and ambiguity.

17 How should the model in the Forum Theatre be rehearsed?

There are many ways to rehearse a model. In my method there is an analytical exercise of motivation and style, and then the various possibilities that have been exercised are "integrated" into a whole.

When rehearsing, we should gradually expel that kind of separated and purified motives, so that firstly, it can help the actors to discover the subtle differences that were not obvious and difficult to be found in the original scene, and bring them to the surface to make people feel and think; Yes, help the actor to create new sentences and actions that reflect a specific scene; finally, help the actor prepare for the reactions that the audience will need when they come on stage and participate in the performance.

At this point, you can often use some tricks such as "artificial pauses", where each actor pauses for a few seconds before speaking his line to focus on the current conflict.

Repeated rehearsal can also help develop different styles, try various styles such as comedy, tragedy, mime, horror, etc., and choose the right part at the end.

Rehearsal is like a painter's palette, allowing actors to equip all possible characters (roles) and then paint them bit by bit.

in year 2001. . .

Our Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil has developed the following easy way to prepare forum theatre:

1 The entire group chooses a "topic", or central idea, or thing, and divides it into groups.

2 Each group makes an "image" of the topic, a generalized, abstract image. Then other people give evaluations.

3 Each actor in the look (which can be under command), shows the logical movement of the figure—that is, how the various characters in the figure might move. Comment on it.

4 Each group decides the story they want to act out and improvises it. Then go back to the big group and show it.

5 The image of the things—everything on the stage begins to express. Expression does not necessarily come from the mouth, the body is already expressing from the very beginning. It is worth noting that no matter what object on the stage must have its meaning, and generally the object on the stage does not express its meaning in life, and the object on the stage will not be what it originally represented. If we were to use a real phone to represent the phone on stage, we had to invent a bigger one, or a smaller one, with different materials. To show an object that reflects ideology, it needs to show who is using it, what it is used for, when, how, and why. Nothing is meaningless on stage, they all have to have meaning, thoughts, emotions. The team needs to feel these things and evaluate their feelings for them, and then express what the objects have to say in the play (which they can't express on their own).

6 Kinetic image - what each actor, individually, would do in a real-world setting playing his/her character in front of the crew. Team members rate what they see and feel.

7 The whole group must make an "image of Chinese crisis", that is, the image is about the protagonist reaching a critical moment when he has to do an irreversible action or say an irreversible word that will determine the whole the ending of the play.

8 Actors in the image should be led by one person and simultaneously speak "their desire monologue" - each person's needs in a specific situation.

9 "Images of Desire in Action" - Actors should show their desire in action (ie, action) in very slow motion.

After doing all these steps, the whole troupe does an overall improvisation.

18 Can Forum Theater change the theme?

Sometimes you can. (Example, omitted) The example is intended to illustrate that if a debate is very confusing, should the first discussion be "how to organize a discussion?"

19 Can someone in the Forum Theatre be just a "spectator"?

Can't!

20 When does a Forum Theatre end?

Never.

Forum theatre is not about coming up with a solution or venting emotions, on the contrary, it is about encouraging autonomous action, stimulating creativity of transformation, and giving the oppressed (the protagonist, the spectators) the opportunity to be empowered for future action Do exercises. Even if the future (theater) scene is imagined, the oppression they will face (whether it is their own being or the image) is real and exists.

The theater shouldn't end either. The theatre of the oppressed lies precisely between the fictional and the real, and this boundary must be crossed.

If a play begins in fiction, its purpose is also to integrate its story into reality, in life.

Now, when many "sures" have become "doubts", when many dreams are exposed to the sun and wither, when many hopes have become illusions - today we live in a time of confusion, full of confusion and uncertainty. At the same time I am more convinced than ever that the best thing for theatre is that it asks the right questions at the right time. Let's be more democratic, let our audience tell us their desires, let us show them something else. Let's hope that one day - please, in the not too distant future - we will be able to convince and compel our governments, our leaders, to do (the same thing as theatre): ask their audiences - we - they should What to do to make the world a livable and happy place - yes, it is possible - instead of building a huge market where we're just selling our wares, and our souls.

look forward!

Let's work together!