Augusto Boal was born in Rio de Janeiro on the 16th of March 1931 and took an interest in theatre from a young age, preparing skits for his family with his three other brothers but took his undergraduate degree in engineering at a university in Rio de Janeiro. He later moved to New York and did a course in theatre whilst doing his masters in Engineering. During his theatre course, he learnt about the ways of Chekhov and Stanislavsky which he took with him when he went to sao paulo when he was asked to work at the arena theatre. The new methods he learnt have a left wing approach and he had to adapt them to the times because Brazil had just been through a dictatorship.
Boal's aims was to give voices to the oppressed people of society who were the underdogs (society was ruled by the church and middle/upper class) and didn't have voices. This caused great controversy and he was seen as a threat due to his cultural activism. In 1971, Boal was kidnapped off the street, tortured and exiled to Argentina for five years where he wrote two books; Torquemada (1971) and Theatre of the Oppressed (1973). Torquemada was about the rough treatment in prison and Theatre of the Oppressed was about his theatre and all the different elements to it.
After 15 years in exile, Boal returned to Brazil and established a Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed and created a company within the centre who's objectives were to discuss issues relating to nationality, society, culture and other forms of oppression and find out how to address the issues through various forms of theatre. Augusto Boal traveled the world working with different groups of people and spreading his method in order to help others and give oppressed people across the world the ability to express themselves and for a new genre of theatre to emerge.
Theatre of the Oppressed has really helped many theatre companies who specialise in working with disadvantaged people of the community. Aspects of it have been taken and used by them and they now have a different approach to theatre themselves and know how to let the oppressed enjoy theatre and make it their own. We have also benefited from Boal's methods because if we were just to devise something ourselves and teach it to our friends from Certitude, then they may have enjoyed it, but it wouldn't have been from their minds and they wouldn't have been able to say "I made that", because they didn't. Through Theatre of the Oppressed, you're giving these people the ability to roam and express themselves because society makes them suppress their feelings all the time.
I'm going to end this post with a nice quote from Boal.
"its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings—and not by animals—to observe themselves in action. Humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. They can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow. This is why humans are able to identify (themselves and others) and not merely to recognise."
And another one.
"In truth the Theatre of the Oppressed has no end, because everything which happens in it must extend into life….The Theatre of the Oppressed is located precisely on the frontier between fiction and reality – and this border must be crossed. If the show starts in fiction, its objective is to become integrated into reality, into life. Now in 1992, when so many certainties have become so many doubts, when so many dreams have withered on exposure to sunlight, and so many hopes have become as many deceptions – now that we are living through times and situations of great perplexity, full of doubts and uncertainties, now more than ever I believe it is time for a theatre which, at its best, will ask the right questions at the right times. Let us be democratic and ask our audiences to tell us their desires, and let us show them alternatives. Let us hope that one day – please, not too far in the future – we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences – us – what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in – yes, it is possible – rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!"
Boal's aims was to give voices to the oppressed people of society who were the underdogs (society was ruled by the church and middle/upper class) and didn't have voices. This caused great controversy and he was seen as a threat due to his cultural activism. In 1971, Boal was kidnapped off the street, tortured and exiled to Argentina for five years where he wrote two books; Torquemada (1971) and Theatre of the Oppressed (1973). Torquemada was about the rough treatment in prison and Theatre of the Oppressed was about his theatre and all the different elements to it.
After 15 years in exile, Boal returned to Brazil and established a Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed and created a company within the centre who's objectives were to discuss issues relating to nationality, society, culture and other forms of oppression and find out how to address the issues through various forms of theatre. Augusto Boal traveled the world working with different groups of people and spreading his method in order to help others and give oppressed people across the world the ability to express themselves and for a new genre of theatre to emerge.
Theatre of the Oppressed has really helped many theatre companies who specialise in working with disadvantaged people of the community. Aspects of it have been taken and used by them and they now have a different approach to theatre themselves and know how to let the oppressed enjoy theatre and make it their own. We have also benefited from Boal's methods because if we were just to devise something ourselves and teach it to our friends from Certitude, then they may have enjoyed it, but it wouldn't have been from their minds and they wouldn't have been able to say "I made that", because they didn't. Through Theatre of the Oppressed, you're giving these people the ability to roam and express themselves because society makes them suppress their feelings all the time.
I'm going to end this post with a nice quote from Boal.
"its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings—and not by animals—to observe themselves in action. Humans are capable of seeing themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their thoughts. They can see themselves here and imagine themselves there; they can see themselves today and imagine themselves tomorrow. This is why humans are able to identify (themselves and others) and not merely to recognise."
And another one.
"In truth the Theatre of the Oppressed has no end, because everything which happens in it must extend into life….The Theatre of the Oppressed is located precisely on the frontier between fiction and reality – and this border must be crossed. If the show starts in fiction, its objective is to become integrated into reality, into life. Now in 1992, when so many certainties have become so many doubts, when so many dreams have withered on exposure to sunlight, and so many hopes have become as many deceptions – now that we are living through times and situations of great perplexity, full of doubts and uncertainties, now more than ever I believe it is time for a theatre which, at its best, will ask the right questions at the right times. Let us be democratic and ask our audiences to tell us their desires, and let us show them alternatives. Let us hope that one day – please, not too far in the future – we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences – us – what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in – yes, it is possible – rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!"
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