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Interviewer: -February.
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This is Democracy Now and now we're going
to go to, go to, near by Brazil.
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Uh, and we are joined, uh, in our studio
and off our house studio here,
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by one of the extraordinary people's
artists, of-of, Latin America.
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Uh, we go to Brazilian artist
and activist, Augusto Boal.
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Who sees theatre as a dialogue and an
opportunity to act out social change.
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Drawing on Paulo Freire's
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
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Boal developed Theatre of the Oppressed,
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out of his experimental work at the
Arena Theatre in São Paulo,
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during the 1950's and 60's.
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Boal took the theatre to factories and
farms throughout Brazil,
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and developed plays around the experiences
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around people silenced
by poverty and oppression.
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Boal's plays were increasingly censored
by the government,
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and in 1971, the military dictatorship
imprisoned him for four months,
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where he was-when he was released he was
forced into exile and spent 15 years
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in Argentina, Portugal, and France,
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before returning to Rio.
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Theatre of the Oppressed techniques from
quote "invisible theatre on the streets
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to solution orientated form theatre
spread around the world."
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Boal was in New York this week running a
theatre workshop at the Brecht Forum,
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and he joins us now in our studio.
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Welcome to Democracy Now.
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Boal: Thank you very much.
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Interviewer: It's a pleasure to have you.
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Uh, talk to us about how you got started
in the 1950's, uh-uh, in using
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theatre, and art to-to, open up, and
explain and-and help folks in-in Brazil
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be able to deal with their social conditions.
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Boal: Yeah, uh, in the 50's I did not
do Theatre of the Oppressed,
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I did theatre like everybody else.
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And I cho-called to spectate to come.
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You charge a price, for the-the ticket
and then you do plays.
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The best that you can.
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But soon I understood that as I was
doing good plays, wonderful plays
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for people that were good writers, for an
audience that came just to look at it,
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and say "okay it's nice."
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and then they went away,
and nothing else happens.
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And always for me, play should
be more than that.
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Shakespeare used to say-not used to say,
but he said in Hamlet
