Theater of the Oppressed Series: The Powa Game Collection: Afterword to the Second Edition of the English Translator

Original source: https://www.douban.com/group/topic/29841166/

Chapter Name: Postscript to the Second Edition of the English Translator - page xxix

2012-05-22 20:42:02

After ten years and four books, what should I add? With my own troupe, the "Carton Citizens" drilled into the theater of the oppressed, in a wide range of cultures and contexts, here and abroad, with Augustus and without his company, I think I'm better off Understand the work and people - but, thankfully, what I said above (referring to the English translator's first edition preface - Chinese translator's note) still works. Perhaps what has become clearer is the context of the book: his (Augustus, author) astonishing life in theatre, whose writings have so amply explained his life - starting with his radical theatre theory proclaiming him His appearance, The Theater of the Oppressed, culminates in his most recently written autobiography, Hamlet and the Baker's Son, a candid collection of his personal career. A work on the personal and political dimensions of changing and influencing others, it is not an exaggeration to ask questions about how he and his work are changing now. What has changed?

To be sure, the work is now better known. Partly because of the publication of this English translation, theatre for the oppressed is now practiced all over the world, known and valued by people from youth work to urban planning, from district development to management training - it is powerfully created Essentially, it's more useful than the founders intended. The "rules" of forum theatre that Augustus set out in this book are still true, but there have been huge changes in delivery, form, clown (hosting) and everything else about it.

...

In hindsight we can see how the foundation of the "rainbow of desire" was contained in the entire laboratory-like process of Bois's application of masks and rituals, even before his "Mind Police" Paris workshop. These powerful elements reappear: the use of others on ourselves, the projection of others on us, the perseverance with which we experiment with that projection, and a better understanding of our possibilities. The underlying techniques remain the same, but the motivations have changed - initially political and now, with a clear conscience, personal at the same time.

...

So what has become of Bois himself? If the answer is "no change at all," that might seem odd, since he's someone who's spent his life exploring theatre as a medium for change. Some years ago I (English translator) translated some of his earlier unrevised works, confused about "Yankee oppressors"; anywhere in the same text about therapy seems to be "Western middle class" decadent". But now he's a regular in New York and Omaha. He married a psychoanalyst, and she established a full school of drama therapy at the same time. But America is still "North America," and in a recent addition to the book, he wrote in his reflections on a workshop after 9/11, mixed with pity for the participants, but still smells the love of America. The fury of imperialism has shaped his political outlook since the 1960s. His humanity is clearly more tolerant and self-affirming, even though the world has not changed as much as he wants, although hostility (animus, animus, masculinity) still drives a never-before-seen Diminished anger. Augustus Bova, the baker's son, is still very young at seventy years old