Augusto Boal 2005 interview on 2005 DemocracyNow

Interviewer: -February.

This is Democracy Now and now we're going
to go to, go to, near by Brazil.

Uh, and we are joined, uh, in our studio
and off our house studio here,

by one of the extraordinary people's
artists, of-of, Latin America.

Uh, we go to Brazilian artist
and activist, Augusto Boal.

Who sees theatre as a dialogue and an
opportunity to act out social change.

Drawing on Paulo Freire's
Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Boal developed Theatre of the Oppressed,

out of his experimental work at the
Arena Theatre in São Paulo,

during the 1950's and 60's.

Boal took the theatre to factories and
farms throughout Brazil,

and developed plays around the experiences

around people silenced
by poverty and oppression.

Boal's plays were increasingly censored
by the government,

and in 1971, the military dictatorship
imprisoned him for four months,

where he was-when he was released he was
forced into exile and spent 15 years

in Argentina, Portugal, and France,

before returning to Rio.

Theatre of the Oppressed techniques from
quote "invisible theatre on the streets

to solution orientated form theatre
spread around the world."

Boal was in New York this week running a
theatre workshop at the Brecht Forum,

and he joins us now in our studio.

Welcome to Democracy Now.

Boal: Thank you very much.

Interviewer: It's a pleasure to have you.

Uh, talk to us about how you got started
in the 1950's, uh-uh, in using

theatre, and art to-to, open up, and
explain and-and help folks in-in Brazil

be able to deal with their social conditions.

Boal: Yeah, uh, in the 50's I did not
do Theatre of the Oppressed,

I did theatre like everybody else.

And I cho-called to spectate to come.

You charge a price, for the-the ticket
and then you do plays.

The best that you can.

But soon I understood that as I was
doing good plays, wonderful plays

for people that were good writers, for an
audience that came just to look at it,

and say "okay it's nice."

and then they went away,
and nothing else happens.

And always for me, play should
be more than that.

Shakespeare used to say-not used to say,
but he said in Hamlet,

that the theatre should be, and is,
like a mirror.

In which you look at the mirror and
see our vices and our virtues.

I think that's very nice.

But I'd like to have a mirror, uh, with
some magic properties in which we

could-uh, if we don't like the image
that we have in front of us,

to allow us to penetrate into that mirror,

and then transform our image.

And then come back with our image transformed.

The act of transform, you always say,
transform she or he who acts.

So, to use the theatre as a rehearsal
for transformation of reality.

This was my idea but not my practice,
until the dictatorship was, uh,

every time more severe on us.

And started, uh, forbidding our plays
and not allowing us to do our plays,

to do nothing.

So when we lost our theatre, we lost
everything, we found theatre.

Interviewer: So-so this would've been
the military dictatorship of the late 60's-

Boal: Yeah, it started from the 50-uh,
64, uh, and then it lasted till 80 and something.

And some structures are still there.

Uh, we talk about now we have democracy.

What kind of democracy?

Democracy is a word you can
fill in with whatever you want.

I believe that words, they are like trucks,
they are like means of transportation.

You can put inside what you want.

And democracy we call democracy many
countries in which you have to choose

between two people that are very rich,
and buy time on the television,

while democracy Greece in which the women
did not vote.

We call democracy anything.

We say in Brazil we have democracy,
but that's not true.

Half of the population cannot read or write.

Half of the population live under
the poverty limit of life.

So that's not democracy.

Interviewer: Uh, Paulo Freire,
you, you've been--

many people have said you began to
implement in theatre some of his ideas

and, uh, perspectives, can you talk about
how you began to develop, uh,

the Forum Theatre and, and,
you're theatre of the oppressed.

Boal: Yeah, Paulo Freire was a very
good friend of mine.

Uh, and he started, uh, more or less in
the 60's once we were talking

to try to remember when we have met for
the first time.

We do not remember well,
we had the impression that we

had met for all our lives.

And, uh, his work inspired me of course,
and they developed parallel, one to another.

But of course, he wrote the Pedagogy of
the Press, and my title, Theater of

the Press is an homage to him, no?

Uh, well, how it started, when I was, uh,
in the 70s, I was already, uh, persecuted

by the police, by the army, by all of them,
and then I could not do theater anymore,

so I said 'I cannot give the population
the artistic product red.'

So what I'm going to do is to try to give
them the means of production.

Then me and a group of, uh, my
colleagues of the arena theater, we

started developing what we call the,
the Newspaper Theater in which we

would translate news from the newspaper
into act-- into, uh, scenes, uh,

theatrical scenes, but we would teach them
how to do it, but we would not do it

for them, so we wanted to, uh,
democratize the means of production.

Then we developed lots of groups that
did the Newspaper Theater about

their own problems, we worked in
factories, we worked in churches because

in Brazil there is a church which is very
reactionary, but there is also a church

which is very progressive, the theology
of liberation and all that.

Well, then we start doing that, I was
arrested in '71.

And then I had to leave the country, uh,
and then I went to Argentina.

In Argentina, I had to do something also.

Uh, and I like to do theater in the street,
but my friend said 'don't do theater in

the street because if you got arrested
again here in Argentina, they will send

you back to-- to Brazil.'

And in Brazil, they do not arrest the same
person twice, the second time they kill directly.

So someone had a good idea, he said 'why
don't we do the play, but we don't tell

anybody the place so you can be there,
and no one is responsible for anything

because you, uh, you expose the scene
in front of everyone, everyone can

participate,' so we did that.

We did a, what they call, an invisible theater.

We went to a restaurant, it was a law, that
said that, uh, no Argentinian could die

from hunger, uh, if Argentina had the
right to go into any restaurant and

eat whatever they wanted, but not drink
wine, not take dessert, the rest they

could ask for two, three beef steaks,
and it would be okay.

And then sign the bill, and show the
identity card in which they prove that

they were Argentinian.

So I say, 'okay, let's go to a real
restaurant instead of spending money

to make the settings and spending
money to make propaganda, let's

go to a real restaurant and play
the play there!'

And then me, Augusto, I watched sitting
far away at another table eating my beef.

Uh, so, when we exploded into the scene,
everyone participated, and then it was

very nice because the actor became the
spectator of the spectator who had

become an actor.

So the fiction and reality were, uh,
overlapping, no?

That was in Argentina in--

Interviewer: What was-- what was the
reaction of the--

Boal: The reaction was very good because
we never create violence.

We want to reveal the violence that
exists in society.

We don't want to replicate it, we don't
want to bring out violence, but just to

show society is violent, if there is people
who is dying from hunger, uh, and food

is plenty, why should they die?

So, we try to show the absurdity of the
system in which we live, no?

Interviewer: And was the invisible theater,
uh, actors, the-- the, you know, core, did

you train more people to do it, or was it
basically a small cohort that went all

around the whole country?

Boal: In the beginning of the Theater of
the Oppressed, there were both.

There were people, citizens, normal
citizens who want to make an, uh,

theatrical experience, and some
professional actors also.

Today, I work with both, but separately.

Uh, I have worked with the Royal
Shakespeare Company, working in

plays by Shakespeare, and try to show
them some of techniques of the Theater

of the Oppressed, interiorize techniques, no?

But, uh, that's something, and something
else is to work with everybody because

we believe that everybody can do theater.

Everybody can do what one person can do,
everyone can do, but not the same way, not

through the same skills, but everyone can
do it with the same sincerity and same

means of expression.

Interviewer: Well, were talking with
Augusto Boal, uh, the founder of

Brazil's "Theater of the Oppressed",
uh, we're going to take a break for

60 seconds for stations to identify
themselves, and then we'll be back

with him.

[music]

Interviewer: Welcome back to
Democracy Now, I'm Juan Gonzales sitting

in for Amy Goodman, who is in Italy
speaking at an event there in Italy

today, uh, we're joined by Augusto Boal
who is the founder of "The Theater of

the Oppressed" movement in Brazil and
globally, Boal is the author of several

books including his 2001 autobiography,
"Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My life in

theater and politics".

And what are-- welcome back, so we can
continue the conversation.

The-- could you talk to use about the
forum theater?

Uh, what is the forum theater and how
did that develop?

Boal: The forum theater is exact the image
of the mirror, no, we present the problem

because sometimes we know what the
problem is, all of us agree, we have this

problem, so far as the workers that go
to, uh, claim for better conditions of

work, or better salaries, or whatever.

But everyone agrees, but how to do it,
we don't know.

So what we do: we present the play,
whatever the theme is, whatever the

problem is, we present the play, and
then we look at it like normal

spectators, but at the end, we say, 'okay,
this ended a failure, so how could we

change the events?'

Everything is going to change, in society,
in our biological life, everything's always

changing, nothing is going to stay the
way it is, all is going to-- so how can

we change this for better?

And then we start again the same play,
and we invite the audience to act

any time that they want to say 'stop,
go to replace the protagonist and

show alternatives.'

So we learn from one another, you have
in the scene the wrong solution, the

wrong way, and then we try to see
what is the right way, we don't know.

We don't do the political theater of the
'50s in which we had propaganda, you

had an idea, you have a message, we
don't have the message, we have

the questions.

We bring about, what can we do?

And democratically, everyone can say
'stop' and jump in the scene, and try

a solution or an alternative, and then
we discuss that alternative, and then

a second and third, as many as, uh,
people are there, so what we want

is to develop the capacity of people
to create, to use that intelligence, to

use their sensibility because we live
in a society which is very imperative

who says all of the time, 'do this, go
that way, dress this way, eat that'.

And we don't want the orders.

We don't want the imperative mood.

We want to see the subjunctive theater,
you know to say, 'how would it be if it

were like that?'

Then we ask the people we bring
questions, we don't bring certitudes.

But the questions, the doubts, are the
seeds of certitudes, then some

certainty comes out.

But it is from everyone, everyone has
the right to speak their word, and to

act their thoughts, not only to talk
about, but to act their thoughts.

Interviewer: What has been the impact
of the Theater of the Oppressed on the

established, uh, theater or artistic, uh,
movements within Brazil and in

Latin America?

Boal: Yeah, in the, uh, I started doing
that in Peru in reality when I was

already an exile.

I was doing directing the part of his
because the government had their time.

Uh, it was a military government, but
strangely enough, it was center left, and

they wanted to make programs of, uh,
literacy programs and I was in charge

of the theater, so I started doing that.

Now its all over the world.

We have in the, uh, the webpage
which is theateroftheoppressed,

all together, dot org.