The Courage to Be Happy: Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre, and the 7th International Festival of the Theatre of the

Oppressed Author(s): Paul Heritage Reviewed work(s): Source: TDR (1988-), Vol. 38, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 25-34 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1146376 . Accessed: 09/04/2012 05:11
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The

Courage

to

Be

Happy

Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre, and the 7th InternationalFestival of the Theatre of the Oppressed

Paul Heritage

Candidate number 13669 in the 1992 elections for Rio de Janeiro's City Council announced himself to the public in a way unfamiliar to most electorates. His slogan was "Have the courage to be happy!" His name was Augusto Boal (plate I). The political significance of the slogan would probably be missed by most politicians and dismissed by the majority of "serious" political commentators. In the context of Brazil, where an estimated 70 percent of the population lives in poverty (their situation more graphically described by the Portuguese word miseria), the slogan is as radical as the campaign that accompanied it. Boal was successfully elected as a vereador'for the Workers' Party (PT) on a mandate that proposed a democratization of the political process through theatre. Voting, Boal said in one of his election leaflets, "is a paradoxical power: at the moment of exercising it, at the moment of voting, this power disappears" (I992a). Thus he has proposed, and is now in the process of creating, a new stage in the Theatre of the Oppressed to be known as "Legislative Theatre." Artists throughout history have become active politicians, recent theatrical candidates include examples as diverse as Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, Glenda Jackson in Britain, and Ronald Reagan in the USA. While it may be debatable how far any of them actually went in giving up their former profession, they all have been anxious to separate their former theatrical careers from their new role. Boal, on the contrary, has emphasized the continuity and interaction of the two functions: I want to make politics but I don't want to change my professionI am a man of the theatre! For me, this was always possible and now it is necessary: theatre is political and politics is theatre [...]. My proposition consists in this union, rich for the theatre and for politics: I propose a democratic theatre where the spectator transTl7eDrama Review38, 3 (TI43), Fall 1994. Copyright? I994 New York Universityand the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology. 25

26 Paul Heritage
forms himself into the protagonist, discovers and experiments with possible solutions-on the stage, theatrically: and this is a political activity! The spectator is transformed into Protagonist and acts; the elector becomes a legislator and proposes the law. Both the campaign and the mandate will be explosively theatrical: street theatre becomes the Chamber and the Chamber is in the street [...], In the '6os theatre politicized itself; today in the 'gos, the moment has arrived to theatricalize politics. (Boal I992a) From a field of I,OOOcandidates Boal was elected, with 41 other vereadors, to take office for four years. Each vereador brings a staff of up to 30 workers to their team which assists in the implementation of their mandate. Boal's team is divided between the theatrical members (the five full-time and ten part-time Jokers) and the legislative members that might form part of the mandate of any other vereador (lawyers, journalists, secretaries, drivers, etc.). The Jokers' team works with approximately 12 community groups, seeking to find practical and legislative solutions through Forum Theatre: e.g., teachers, shop workers, street children. The way in which Boal is implementing his mandateand thus Legislative Theatre-is by using the Center of the Theatre of the Oppressed (CTO) in Rio. CTO has developed a small number of key Forum models in association with local groups. These Forums are given multiple performances at different points of the city with one person recording all the solutions that are made. These are then entered into a computer and analyzed by the Workers' Party to decide what action is most appropriate in the Council. Sometimes there will be the clear necessity for a new law (for example, to protect pregnant women's rights in the workplace); sometimes they will put pressure on the Mayor to solve a specific problem (i.e., if someone's house is about to collapse because of the rains, then the Mayor can direct the work necessary under existing legislation). At each of the performances in the street, the Joker explains to the audience who the actors are and how the audience will be able to participate in the legislative process. Leaflets are handed out describing not only the process of Forum Theatre but also the context in which it is being operated-the hows, the whys, and the wherefores. The following extract is taken from one such leaflet:

A New Way to Make Theatre. A New Method of Making Politics.

We are the political-theatrical mandate of the vereador Augusto Boal. We use theatre to discuss problems of communities, workers, Blacks, women, street children, the unemployed, the homeless, etc. We don't want a passive audience, simply watching. We propose, on the contrary, that the public participate, interfere, enter on to the stage and propose alternatives for the plot: create a new story. Our plays portray the problems that we live with day-to-day. Thus we intend to denounce the irregularities, protest against the indifference of the public authorities, and, together with the audience, to look for the possible solutions for the questions presented. [...]

Theatre is Political and Politics is Theatre.

We are working with different people in various parts of the city. We have, today, more than ten groups of the Theatre of the

Boal Festival 27 Oppressed rehearsing and presenting Forum Theatre plays about the main problems experienced by the people of Rio. We want to create a network of Theatre of the Oppressed groups in every city, where more and more people are reflecting and creating ways to liberate themselves from their oppressions. We intend to remain in permanent contact with the population, presenting our plays in the streets and squares, at the four corners of the city. This play that you will see now is already a demonstration of the work that we want to make.

We intend to democratize Politics through theatre!

We want to help you to demand your rights! Now we have taken to the field: amongst you! Liberty is not a gift of the gods: Liberty is fought for, step by step! (Boal I992b)

"Have the courageto

X!

3i ;t 5 _

00

~~~~~~~~~vereador

electionin Rio To Boal's left is Rosath Bottom: thMdrquez. "Theslogan

national Festival the of

"formance ouage to of the

in ulyAugust Rireros Rico-based 2. Top Tealection in 993.

speakingtes at the 7th IterInternationalFestival of the The ironiclocationof the Oppessed Bival FesTo was the marbledosa of the lobbyance downPuertown

Bank of Brazil. (Photos by Miguel Villafafie)

28

Paul Heritage The clarity and purpose of Boal's political/theatrical agenda provided a context for the 7th International Festival of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Hosted by CTO (Rio) in July 1993, it brought together representatives from over 20 countries to share their different experiences of Theatre of the Oppressed through performances, workshops, and lectures. The public events took place in the imperial edifice of the Cultural Centre of the Bank of Brazil (plate 2). The significance and irony of the setting was apparent every day as the audience sat for three hours on the marble floors watching performances whose words floated inexorably up to be lost in the second and third galleries above. The space was unquestionably inadequate for performance purposes but it functioned admirably in other ways. By performing within the Bank of Brazil, Boal placed the Festival firmly within the cultural center of Rio and ensured more than just a sponsorship deal. Every day for three weeks the space was full and the work was received with great excitement by an extremely vocal, and active audience. It provided a platform, not only for the work which the CTO is currently pioneering in Rio, but it also showed Boal's ideas reverberated across the stages of the world. The affirmation that the Festival provided for Boal and his present agenda in Rio was evident throughout. Despite his strong international reputation, particularly in Europe and the United States, Boal's position in Brazil is by no means certain. Many Brazilians remember him for his radical work of the '6os and are surprised to hear that he is back in the 'gos working in Brazil. Actually, he has been returning to Rio for various projects since 1986 (see Taussig and Schechner I990), but without television exposure in this vast country it is inconceivable to achieve a national reputation. The limited coverage of the Festival in the Brazilian media was indicative of the preconceptions and prejudices that still surround Boal's work. In fact, his work has its own power to generate interest and activity at the most important level-in the street and with the people. The Festival, however, marked the importance of the Theatre of the Oppressed and Boal himself within a wider framework. This has to be carefully handled by CTO and the party. In all their political pamphlets they emphasize Boal's commitment to working in Rio and the end of his international travels for the period of his mandate. It is as a Brazilian that Boal is now working. In I994 Brazil will elect a new president and at the moment (March 1994) the Workers' Party candidate Lula [Luis Inacio da Silva] is leading in the polls. Boal returned to Brazil in I989 to support Lula's candidacy when he unexpectedly lost to Fernando Collor de Mello, and will clearly have an important part to play in the new elections. All the present activities are focused towards the events of November I994.2 The three weeks of the Festival provided an opportunity to see the ways in which Boal's work has been adapted and transformed by different practitioners and how it has absorbed varied cultural influences. As Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz write in their introduction to Playing Boal: [...A]s a relatively young body of techniques moving from Latin America (where it originated and flourished) to North America and Europe (where it is now experiencing its most rapid growth), Theatre of the Oppressed's own culturally specific values were, and still are, colliding with those of other systems, people, movements; the techniques themselves [have] become the site of intercultural conflict. (Schutzman and Cohen-Cruz I994:5) Questions now about the constructions of the models, the operation of

Boal Festival 29 the Forum, and the controlling function of the Joker could all find themselves not only being asked within the country from which they emerged, but being answered polyglotally. Boal had originally asked all the participants to prepare pieces that were essentially nonverbal, to allow for presentation in a situation where there would be little or no translation. This was achieved with varying degrees of success by the different groups. The construction of many of the models was dependent on easily identifiable Image Theatre techniques, and most of the European work was not far removed from what had been experienced with Boal, in any of his workshops. The most interesting variations came from those groups where there was a more noticeable incorporation of national cultural forms, and those were definitely the non-European groups: Burkinab6 from Burkina Faso; Jana Sanskriti from India; Teatreros Ambulantes from Puerto Rico. Each of them redefined Boal's work in ways that were particular to their own performance traditions. The group from Burkina Faso, for example, was able to mix scenes of intense naturalism, showing the growing tensions in a family after a father loses his job, with dance and ritual that dealt more thematically with the depicted oppressions. Their relationship with the audience, established through shared acts of eating and drinking in a prolog accompanied by fierce drumming, was a quality to be found in the best of the work at the Festival. The Puerto Rican and the Indian troups performed their work in ways that expressed joy in the theatrical experience, even as they engaged the audience in the complexity of contemporary oppressions. These performances reminded all the groups present that the starting point of Forum still has to be the theatricality of the model; by this means the audience is engaged and brought into the debate. The paper costumes and music/dance dramas of Rosa Luisa's Teatreros Ambulantes (plate 3) burst through the self-imposed boundaries of the European groups. Similarly the Indian performances dispensed with lin-

3 & 4. Left: The paper costumesand music/dance dramaof Teatreros Ambulantes of Puerto Rico burst throughthe boundaries self-imposed the Europeangroups of at the 7th International Festival. Right: India's Jana Sanskriti dispensed with linear narrativein favor of a form that and mocked borrowed traditionalformsof dance and mask drama. (Photos by Miguel Villafane)

30

Paul Heritage ear narrative in favor of a form that borrowed and mocked traditional forms of dance and mask drama (plate 4). The point of interest for most of the practitioners present was the capacity for intervention in each of the different models. There seems a common expectation that the audience member who enters the stage to fight for liberation against the forces of oppression will find it easier within the bounds of naturalism to deal with situations in ways that are most common in their own lives. This is certainly what Boal teaches in his workshops. But all too frequently, there is a reduction of Boal's methodology to the point where Forum becomes little more than simulated role-play. The lack of a common verbal language ensured that the interventions in Rio had to be attempted within the theatrical convention of the piece. The more naturalistic the model, the harder this became as the restrictions of language imposed barriers of understanding and recognition. Boal emphasized that anyone could intervene in a language they did not speak because the manner of speech and the use of the body should ensure an understanding of the intervention. This was only partially achieved. More successful were certainly the models that did not require the audience to engage in the play's dialog, but rather set up other theatrical conventions for meaning and intervention. There were certainly memorable moments of international exchange as Swedish women demonstrated their idea of liberation within an African village, or Indians intervened in a Brazilian marital dispute. These served to show both the commonalities and particularities of oppressions, although there were some crushing moments of intervention where neither the actors or the spectators showed any respect for cultural difference. The essence of Forum lies in the dialogic relationship between stage and audience constructed through the use of the space, the performance style, and the conduct of the actors and the Joker. The theatrical goal is to achieve a common purpose with the audience, as solutions are sought and rehearsed in a shared, safe space. The Rio Festival tested all these things to the full. The space was not naturally conducive to any sort of performance-least of all the interactive nature of Forum, and many groups proved inadequate to the challenge of adapting their theatre to suit the demands of this particular situation. There was also nothing about the audience that necessarily gave them the sort of commonality that is usually associated with this form of work. They did not obviously share the same oppressions, either with each other or with those onstage. At the beginning it seemed like a demonstration of Forum Theatre performances and techniques, rather than an actual experiencing of the event. Indeed, Boal began the first evening with a talk entitled "Twenty-Two Years of the Theatre of the Oppressed," illustrated by re-presentations of the famous moments by CTO (Rio). However, as the three weeks progressed new lessons were being learned as "rules" were tested and broken. Boal was prepared, as ever, to let forms invent themselves as Forum itself develops and evolves. Working in the language and forms recognized most readily by the majority of the audience, CTO was able to achieve the most genuine sense of a Forum. Performing daily before the International presentations, CTO provided some of the most charged moments of the Festival. Highly verbal, the models all used a heightened performance style that borrowed from commedia, pantomime, and buffon/carnival traditions but seemed also to be mocking the passionate intensity of the Brazilian TV soap operas. The glorious exaggeration of the props and

Boal Festival 31 costumes reflected well the performances of the actors and hugely entertained the audience. Many of the pieces were framed by traditional Brazilian songs and/or dances, ensuring that whatever the struggle depicted or shared there was also a celebration of the coming together of audience and performer. The most successful examples of their work reaffirmed the essential power of Forum-when the audience can work with the actors to solve common problems. Hence the presentation by a group of teachers about oppressions in their workplace to an audience who had all experienced in some way the Brazilian education system (international guests excepted). The audience members recognized the situation, felt a part of the debate, and were able to articulate their responses and rehearse their solutions within the framework of a play that genuinely asked difficult questions and demanded answers. CTO has been working with many groups, but none captured the attention of the Festival as much as the street children. The Festival coincided with one of the most concentrated and horrific massacres of street children on 23 July 1993 at the Church of the Candelaria when eight children were shot by members of the Military Police. Perhaps with the blatant audacity of the murders outside a church in the very center of Rio, the world gave more attention to this incident than it does to the daily onslaught that these children suffer. The blood-stained pavement was only a few meters from the doors of the Festival and the impact on all the participants was profound, finding expression in various theatrical responses on the streets over the next few days (see plates 5 and 6). However, within the Festival, a Forum presentation by a group of the street children themselves had the greatest impact of the various responses. Working with CTO the children produced a play about the way in which one boy is forced to leave his family and live on the street. Using an eclectic style that mixed rap and capoeirawith naturalistic dialog, they dispensed with many of the myths surrounding the street children while simultaneously presenting the individual trajectory of particular protagonist. In a society of such great divides, the majority of the middle-class audience shared little more than nationality with the performers-but the play produced surprising effects. Certainly it was not the "purest" of Forums: few if any of the audience had experience of the oppressions presented and thus by Boal's normal definitions would not be qualified to solve them. However, all of the Brazilian audience are in some way part of the debate and thus implicated in the situation. The social ills and problems of Brazil are debated furiously in every bar and restaurant and on every street corner. This was the opportunity for those who have described and proposed solutions to the "problem of the street children" to act on those suggestions. Boal proves over and again that theatre is a place of action beyond theory. On that day, beneath the marble columns and balustrades of the Bank of Brazil, a simple piece of Forum Theatre provided one of the few actual dialogs between the children of the streets and the citizens of Brazil who daily pity, ignore, mourn, and fear them. It reminded the international participants of both the power and the reality of the techniques beyond the artificial hothouse of the Festival. Experiencing Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio, it is also possible to connect Boal's work into deeper currents in Brazilian cultural and political life. The development of Invisible Theatre and Forum Theatre as expressed by Boal is well known and documented, arising out of his time as a director at the Arena Theatre of Sao Paulo and his long pe-

5. During the Festival, on 23 July 993, eight street childrenof Rio were shot by the Military Police. Festivalgroups, at the encouragement of Augusto Boal, demonstrated in the streets. Here Puerto Rico's TeatrerosAmbulates lay in silence as "birds of prey" stalk them. (Photo by Miguel Villafaie)

riod of exile from Brazil. However, it is also fascinating to note the way in which other movements in Brazil reflect the theatre Boal has dreamed of, designed, and implemented. In looking at just the last two years in Brazil, it is possible to see the way in which the street has been the focal point of cultural representation and resistance. The impeachment of a president in 1992 was brought about, not by the craft of investigative journalism as in North America 20 years previously, but by a deeply theatrical street protest movement. An Englishman participating in any form of political demonstration in Brazil finds himself in something more akin to carnival than the gray and tired politics he is accustomed to in Britain. When President Collor called for the people to show their support and go on the streets wearing the national colors of green and yellow in August 1992, Brazil decked itself out in black in an almost ritualistic funeral, for the country he was killing. For the rest of the impeachment process the protests were marked by the carapintadas (youths with painted faces), demonstrating with black streaks proudly worn like marks of war on their faces. The concept of social movements that contest the rights of the citizen in public spaces is by no means particularly Brazilian. It is a part of histories of human/social struggle. The manner and form of that contest will clearly reflect the cultural habits of those societies. In a society with such inequality as Brazil, with a political elite taken from a conspicuously narrow base, there is a special urgency to all parts of that agenda which seeks to broaden the involvement of those who are disempowered and essentially disenfranchised. Hence the growing concept of Nova Cidadania3 (New Citizenship) in Brazil where social movements are working to create alternative ways for citizens to participate in the newly won democracy. The most obvious example a the mo-

Boal Festival 33 ment is the campaign Citizen's Action against Hunger and Poverty, established by sociologist Herbert de Souza (commonly known as Betinho), which has established committees in banks, schools, hospitals, factories, and workplaces across the country. These committees not only organize the collection and distribution of food and the construction of new facilities, but also are instrumental in establishing a national debate that is outside of the normal political, structures. In Rio de Janeiro the theatre community has mobilized strongly in support of the campaign. At a weekly Monday meeting, upwards of 200 actors, directors, technicians gather to discuss ways of using their particular skills to mobilize essential provisions and advance the political arguments. Each night of the week various subcommittees meet to implement and develop the strategies decided at the general assembly.

6. During the Festival, and after the murderof a group of street children, Boal (pictured)and the Center of the Theatreof the Oppressedsponsored a Forum Theatrepresentation by a group of street childrenabout life on the streets of Rio. (Photo by Miguel Villafafe)

34

Paul Heritage In September 1993, they mounted their biggest event yet with a week of activities throughout the city beginning on Brazilian Independence Day. Five hundred artists, including the vanguard of the Brazilian theatre, staged a variety of "Happenings," primarily in public spaces. On Monday, 2 August 1993, after three exhausting weeks of the 7th International Festival of the Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal was not to be found resting at any of the opportune places that Rio provides. Instead, he was present at the weekly Monday meeting of theatre practitioners involved in the Citizen's Action against Hunger and Poverty, addressing them on strategies and practicalities involved in making theatre in the streets. Vereador and theatre director are brought together as Boal instructs, entertains, illuminates, and inspires the gathered assembly in much the same way he has done for so long on the workshop circuit of the world. He is now back in Brazil enabling the spectator to become actor and the citizen to become legislator in the midst of social movements that are finding new ways to invent Brazil's present through a re-visioning of its future. Notes
i. A vereador is the equivalent of a city councillor. In Rio representatives are elected by the whole city's electorate as there is no constituency system. 2. The pressures on Boal and CTO are bound to increase as they approach the election in November I994. In the autumn of I993 he came under attack from the right wing press which, in allegiance with a group of Vereadores, pressed for his removal from office on the grounds of procedural irregularities. Boal successfully defended his position. Stories invented by the media in the final days of the campaign were instrumental in bringing Collor to the presidency in I989 when Lula was leading in the opinion polls. Once again Lula is well ahead in all the polls and the attacks on Boal are ominously predictable. 3. For a documentation and analysis of this phenomenon, see the work being done by the Department of Law and the Centre for Peace Studies and Human Rights at the University of Brasilia (e.g., Paoli and de Sousa 1992).

References
Boal, Augusto "Coragem de ser Feliz!" Election leaflet. I992a "Vamos botar a boca no trombone." Pamphlet distributed at street I992b performances. Paoli, Maria Celia, and Jose Geraldo de Sousa "O direito achado na ma." Humanidades8, 4:494-507. 1992 Schutzman, Mady, and Jan Cohen-Cruz 1994 Playing Boal. London: Routledge. Taussig, Michael, and Richard Schechner "Boal in Brazil, France, the USA: An Interview with Augusto Boal." 1990 TDR 34, 3 (TI27):50-66.

Paul Heritage isformerly a director the Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company. of He is currentlyLecturerin the Drama Departmentat ManchesterUniversity. He is also director the Theatre in Prisons and ProbationCentre. He has published of in thefields of AIDS and culture, Shakespeare,and contemporary British theatre. Presently, he is workingon developingtheatreprogramsin Brazilian prisons.