Augusto+Boal

Biography
Agusto Boal was born in Rio de Janeiro 1931. He was highly interested in theater from a very early age, and (after graduating from collage) got a job in the Arena Theatre in São Paulo. Boal offten experimented with different forms of acting that were often thought up for political reasons and were meant to encourage the audience to get involved; trying to inspire them to make a stand against the class and racial inequalities that were all to common in Brazil at the time. His methods often fell short of his expectations largly due to his own racial and ethnicity and economic class (he was white and an upper class citizen making it difficult to inspire Hispanics that lived in the slums of Rio de Janeiro). His controversial approach was often seen as dangerous to the Brazilian military regime as it provoked people to take action against "the oppressor" that he often depicted in his plays as they do conflict with the oppressed. Boal tried many times to inspire people to rise up against racial and class inequalities. He was arrested in 1971 for his controversial approach to theater; he later went into exile in Argentina. While in exile Boal continued to elaborate and edit his style of theatre, and wrote a book in 1973 titled //__Theatre of the Oppressed__// Boal later moved to Paris to where he would teach his ideology of theatre of the oppressed for years to come, and hold the first ever International Festival for Theatre of the Oppressed in 1981. With the fall of the Brazilian military regime in 1988 Boal saw no more reason why he should remain in France and returned to Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 17 years; here he founded the Center for the Theater of the Oppressed in Rio (CTO Rio).

Theatre of the Oppressed
Undoubtedly Boal's most notable work is the creation of //Theatre of the Oppressed// as a style of acting. Boal used it as a method to inspire the public to stand up against the racial and class inequalities that existed in Brazil at the time. Boal created several different forms of acting that all fall under the catigory of //Theatre of the Oppressed// the most notable are listed bellow:

Forum Theatre
Early on in his career Boal tried desperatly to break down the traditional relationship between the actors and the spectators. Form Theater was probably his most notable attempt to do so. In it at certain moments in the play when their was conflict between the Oppressor and the Oppressed (when a tax collector demanded money from a man who had non, or when a cop beats an angry protester) the audience would be able to alter what happens by recommending what to the actors what they should do, this gives more power to the audience and allows the audiences to alter the events and ending of the play in a way that they believe to be more interesting and enjoyable. If an audience member were to become exceedingly frustrated because an actor wasn't doing what they wanted he could essentially walk on stage and replace the actor in playing the role. Audience members who did this were called " Spect-actor s", the actor who was orriginaly playing the character would remain next to the spect-actor to offer him advise. This style of theatre helped to blur the lines between actor and spectator and allowed for more mystery because nobody could be one-hundred percent sure how the play would end.

Invisible Theatre

Invisible Theatre was an attempt on Boal's part to have acting be done outside of a theatre. In Invisible Theatre no one in the audience is aware that it is actually a performance and are convinced that it is a conflict between two or more people on the street (such as an old man beating a street kid who pocket-picked his wallet) the actors include the people involved in the conflict and may even be typical passer-byes who stop to voice their opinions. Spect-actors in this case are the people who got involved in the conflict without knowing that it is a play.

Image Theatre

In Image Theatre those who participate "mold" their bodies it represent an emotion or idea, they would then move into a group and form images which (more often than not) were meant to depict the relationship between oppressor and the oppressed. Boal's concept for this was his belief that the body is the most significant form of expression and speech is simply a way to "filter out" the original meaning that is created by the individual's motions. those who veiw the image are then alowed to "mold' the image to depict their own personal perspective on that topic; this proccess is repeated until a consensus found among the participants.

Legislative Theatre

In 1993 Boal became a vereador(Brazilian city councilor) of Rio de Janeiro, he held this position until 1997. While working as vereador Boal invented a new form of theatre called Legislative Theatre that was meant to be used for political debate. The it is similar to Forum Theatre but instead of having actors play a scene then having the audience alter it, a resolution is proposed by the submitter and he comes up to speak for it. other members of the audience are then allowed to come up and take the stage to voice their own opinions, this was done until an agreement could be reached. It also allowed for the resolution to be amended in which case the same style of presentation would be used. Legislative Theatre is still used in Canada and the UK.

Works Cited "Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed | A Brief Biography of Augusto Boal." Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed | Home Page. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. . Theatre of The Oppressed. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. . Theatre of The Oppressed. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. . Theatre of The Oppressed. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. . Theatre of The Oppressed. Web. 11 Oct. 2009. .