Augusto Boal 2005 interview on 2005 DemocracyNow

Juan González: --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
"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.

González: 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.

González: 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.

González: 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, Theatre of the Oppressed

is a homage to him, no?

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

by the police, by the army, by all of them,
and then I could not do theatre 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 theatre, we

started developing what we call the,
the Newspaper Theatre 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

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

Then we developed lots of groups that
did the Newspaper Theatre 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 theatre in the street,
but my friend said "don't do theatre 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 theatre.

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

from hunger, uh, if Argentinian 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--

González: 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?

González: And was the invisible theatre,
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 Theatre 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

Theatre 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 theatre.

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

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

means of expression.

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

Brazil's Theatre 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.

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González: Welcome back to
Democracy Now, I'm Juan González 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 Theatre 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 Theatre and Politics.

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

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

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

Boal: The forum theatre 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 theatre 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 theatre,
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.

González: What has been the impact
of the Theatre of the Oppressed on the

established, uh, theatre 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 this
because the government at that 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 theatre, so I started doing that.

Now its all over the world.

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

all together, .org.

Not "theater", but like the English write,

"Theatre" not "theater" oftheoppressed.org

We have the 48 countries, but we know of
more than 70 countries in which

they do Theatre of the Oppressed.

But all of them in their own themes.

We don't tell them "You have to do about
this or that."

Because in India they have an enormous
movement, and what they do is about

hunger, it's about unemployment, it's about
the living conditions of their lives.

But at the same time you have also in
Paris, so in Paris they have treat problems.

In New York here, we have the Brecht Forum
has Theatre of the Oppressed laboratorial.

And what do they discuss?

The problems of New York, the problems of
the United States, the problems of

the relation of the United States government,
of the United States with the rest of the world.

You know, we have in Nebraska, permanent
center, also we have Los Angeles.

That's where I met Amy Goodwin.

She came to my lecture
and I went to her lecture,

so we met there.

So, it's all over.

It's very nice because it's a way of using
theatre in a dynamic way.

Not in a receptive way only, but in
a dynamic way.

To give you an example, which is a very
beautiful example.

We have many groups in Rio.

We have groups of, uh, slums, of, uh--
poor places, poor communities.

González: Favelas.

Boal: Favelas, yes, we have groups of
teachers, we have lots of groups,

and one of them is a group of housemaids.

They are all called Maria, Maria this,
Maria that, Maria something--

they are called Maria's of Brazil.

And that they are housemaids, real
housemaid, they work like a housemaid,

and the only day free, they have Sunday.

So, they come to the theatre and they
practice the theatre, they present their plays.

And once they wanted to
do theatre inside the theatre.

They said, "What you tell us, is that we
do theatre, but we play in church,

we play in the streets, we play everywhere,
but not in the theatre, we want to go

in the theatre."

And I said yes but, uh,
if we go there we are not going to have

the riches of the theatre which you pay
tickets, uh, you have to offer the tickets.

They say, "No, but we want to see the
curtain going up, we want to be in a real building."

And we did that, they were very happy, it
was a great success, and that the end,

they came to tell me that one of them
was weeping after the show,

and I said, "But why it was such a
big success, they applaud so much?"

I asked her, "Why did you weep?"

And she said, "Look, it is very moving
for us, because we who work in house for the other

people, we are supposed to be invisible,
we should not appear, we should do everything

to not be present, and then today I was
rehearsing, and there was a man throwing

lights on me and say, come here so that
we can see your body.

We are taught to be mute, and there was
a man putting a microphone here,

so that I could be heard."

And I said, "That's why you wept?"

And she said, "No, no, it was in the show.

I was playing there, I was showing
my emotions, uh, showing my thoughts

and the family I work for, in 10 years
they were all there in the theatre,

sitting silent, looking at me
and in the dark, and I was there."

And I said, "That's why you wept?"

And she said, "No!"

So, why did you weep?

And she said, "Because when I went
back to the dressing room,

I looked at the mirror, and there
I was, afraid."

And I said, "What did you see in the mirror?"

And she said, "I saw a woman."

And I said, "But that's normal, if you
look at the mirror, you see a woman.

When I look in the mirror to shave,
I see a man."

And she said, "No, but that was the first
time I saw a woman in the mirror."

And I said, "But what did you see before?"

And she said, "Before I saw housemaids,
and now I saw a woman."

So, the theatre by the fact that you go
there, and you show your ideas,

you show your emotions, you show what
you are desires are, give you the right

to have your own identity.

And, not to keep that identity
that they put on you.

We all wear masks in society.

In the theatre, you take off the mask,
and you are yourself.

That's the great advantage of the theatre.

Especially the Theatre of the Oppressed,
in which you can do that.

González: Your-- In your autobiography,

you call it Hamlet and the Bakers Son:
My Life in Theatre and Politics,

the title.

Boal: Yeah.

The title because my father was a baker,
I worked with him very much when I was

a child, and because I am Hamlet.

To be or not to be.

That I am a man of the theatre, and I
work with people who are not

in the theatre, I work with the peasants
without land.

In Brazil it's a very big movement.

While they don't, they are not artists,
and I say 'Yes you are.'

Then I convince them they are artists,
and they are artists.

Then they show their art.

So, I'm always doing theatre professionally,
because I want to show, I think that everyone

can do theatre, even actors.

And theatre can be done everywhere,
even inside theatre.

So, I wanted to be a director, because I'm
not an actor, and I want to use theatre

in a conventional way also, but I am the
other side, what interests me more,

as citizen, because I think that, sometime
people say, you are politically minded or not.

It's not you as an artist,
it's you as a citizen.

If I'm not a, if we're not a man
of the theatre, If I were a dentist,

a veterinarian, if I were a doctor, if
I were a worker, I had as a citizen

to take a parry.

To say, well I believe in this let's
change things in that way.

So, to be politically minded,
is a necessity of the citizen,

not of the artists' only.

González: Your life in politics as well,
you were a member of the

Brazilian Workers Party, that party is now
in power in Brazil, and person of,

President Lula, your sense of how Brazil,
the most important country in Latin America,

in size, in wealth, in population.

How uh, what have been the changes,
over the last few years under the workers party?

Boal: Yeah, uh, I-I don't agree that we
are in power, we are in government.

And the government has not the power
that it wanted.

I believe that there are many things that
Lula and the government is doing,

which are extremely important,
for instance, the treatment of

the, uh, Hunger Zero, the program
called Hunger Zero.

In which they distribute, yes, it's
existentialism in some way,

but they distribute money,
for people who are starving.

And that's important, it's important
even economically.

Because, the money that you give,
to a person who is starving,

is going to buy for his--he is
going to buy food.

It's not the same that if you distributed
dividends, because it is going to be

speculative money, so it's very important
that, uh, that program, and it is very

important to the families, that have not
salary, or not at all, that live with,

less than one dollar a day.

Suddenly they can eat beans, and uh, rice,
which is the national food.

And that's good.

I think that the external politics of Brazil
is also extremely important what they are doing.

Uh, Lola, a few, um, weeks ago, organized
an, um, meeting between the Arab countries

and the South American countries.

We are having a ties with Argentina,
Venezuela, uh, Uruguay,

which are more progressive governments' too.

So, we are having contact with India.

I think it's very important not to only
have bilateral relation with the United States,

but to have all--uh, with other countries
to expand our relations.

This is extremely important.

Uh, what I don't find so important.

What I find not sufficient.

Is for instance the external debt.

We have paid the debt several times
already as interest.

And the debt has to be verified if it
really exists.

When Getúlio Vargas decades ago,
made the, an examination of the money

that we were paying to the external banks,
uh, it was found out that we did not owe,

really not even half of what we were paying.

And now the situation is the same,
we don't owe what we are paying.

We did not borrow that money.

It was a dictatorship that borrowed.

And not all, they are not the evidence there
are not the documents to prove that

we owe so much money.

So, there Lula has not touched this,
it goes unpaid.

And, uh, we know that the economy,
there are absurdities that

are taken for granted.

For instance, for what they call the risk
country, it is the banks that lend the money,

the banks decide if the country has a
risk or not in a unilateral way.

They decide that you are running the
risk of not being capable of paying

your debts, so they raise the interest
instead of lowering, they raise.

And then you pay, if you pay it was
because you could pay, but they

decide that you were a risk, then you
pay, and even so, uh,

they don't give you back the money.

So, they decide is, you borrow some money
you don't know how much you're going to pay.

And this for centuries.

And what I believe is that the debt that
cannot be paid, because they are

extremely big, and they cannot be paid,
they become a link of [stuttering] of slavery.

So, we became a slave country.

We are paying the banks,
we are giving money to the banks.

If we don't cut this bond of slavery.

We are going on all of the time, uh,
protesting because the salaries are low

because the education not enough, because
the health is worse, and that the part

of the government is not working.

González: Let me ask you the-the, we
discussed earlier in the show and you heard

the discussion on Bolivia, the enormous
changes that are occurring throughout

Latin America, politically, compared to
even ten years ago or even five years ago,

which Brazil is apart of these, uh, these
elections that are bringing to power much

more progressive, or-or at least rebellious
governments vis-a-vis the United States

and what the-what do you think is happening
uh, to the, uh, every day Latin American

in terms of the enormous changes
of the last few years?

Boal: Uh, I heard in the interview that
you made awhile ago that a phrase that

is very dear to my heart.

You said, "Everything is possible."

All is possible.

That's what we don't believe.

We believe that the things the way they
are is the only thing that we realistically we can--

the only way realistically think it can be.

But it's not-not true.

The truth is what we heard in this program.

Everything is possible, and then if we
have in our minds that everything can be

transformed, another world is possible
like in the form of social forum

like they said, uh, we start preparing the change.

If we believe that's the way it is,
fatalistically, then nothing is going to happen.

I believe in transformation.

I believe that the, uh, that with we
say in the Theater of the Oppressed that

in the present we have generalized the
past, but we invent the future.

It's not to analyze the past to contemplate
the past and say 'Oh in the past you are like that.'

It is to think
about the future.

And not believe that the, well that's the
law or that, or that legality, or that's moral,

because slavery was moral, uh, a century
ago or more, slavery was moral, was legal.

You could have the property of a person.

Of a human being.

Then you have transformed it, one thing
is moral, the other thing is ethics.

They are not the same.

Moral is the way things are, uh, it's
legality, but legitimacy is an ethic.

A drive, you have to think about another
world in which there will be more fraternity,

there will be more solidarity, and not so
much competition, so much,

I want to be the first, I want.

We have to be all the first, not to
only race and be the first and then,

look back and, oh, the other ones are
far away good for me, no.

González: Well, I want to thank you for
being with us Augusto Boal.

Founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed,
which is now an international movement.

He's here visiting in New York for awhile.

He's the author of several books, including
his 2001 autobiography Hamlet and the Bakers Son.

That does it for today's show, Democracy Now
is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,

Sano Noguera, Elizabeth Press, John Hamilton,
Yoruba Richen, Maddie Harper, Neil Geiser,

and Jeremy Scahill.

Mike Di Filippo was our engineer.

Special thanks to Laurie Gal,
uh, uh, Angela Alston, uh,

Chris Zucker, and the whole team
that makes this show possible.

You can visit us at--on the web
at democracynow.org,

sitting in for Amy Goodwin, I'm
Juan González.

Thanks for joining us for another
addition of Democracy Now.

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