PN2061.B49413

Translation of: Jeux pour acteurs et non-acteurs

1 THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED IN EUROPE 18 Introduction 18 The Godrano experience: my first Forum Theatre in Europe or the ultimate spect-actor/protagonist! 19 Feminism in Godrano 20 The police again 21 The oppressed and the oppressors 23 2 THE STRUCTURE OF THE ACTOR’S WORK 29 The primacy of emotion 29 Muscular exercises 31 Sensory exercises 31 Memory exercises 32 vii Imagination exercises 32 Emotion exercises 32 Rationalising emotion 35 A la recherche du temps perdu 37 The dialectical structure of the actor’s interpretation of a role 40 The will 40 The counter-will 43 The dominant will 45 Quantitative variation and qualitative variation 46 3 THE ARSENAL OF THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED 48 Introduction: a new system of exercises and games from Theatre of the Oppressed 48 Two unities 49 Five categories of game and exercise 49 I FEELING WHAT WE TOUCH (RESTRUCTURING MUSCULAR RELATIONS) 50 First series: general exercises 50 1 The cross and the circle 50 2 Colombian hypnosis 51 3 Minimum surface contact 56 4 Pushing against each other 58 5 Joe Egg (aka trust circle) 62 6 The circle of knots 62 7 The actor as ‘subject’: the Greek exercise 64 8 The actor as ‘object’ 66 9 Lifting someone out of a chair 67 10 Equilibrium of the body with an object 67 11 A balloon as an extension of the body 68 12 Racing on chairs 68 13 Rhythm with chairs 68 14 Musical chairs 69 15 Movement with over-premeditation 69 16 Difficulties 69 17 Divide up the movement 70 18 Dissociate coordinated movements 70 CONTENTS viii Second series: walks 70 1 Slow motion 71 2 At a right angle 72 3 Crab 72 4 Crossed legs (aka three-legged race) 72 5 Monkey 73 6 All fours 73 7 Camel walk 73 8 Elephant walk 73 9 Kangaroo walk 73 10 Leaning-against-each-other walk 73 11 Strapped-feet walk 74 12 Wheelbarrow 74 13 As you like it 74 14 Imitating others 74 Third series: massages 74 1 In a circle 75 2 The movement comes back 75 3 Sea waves 75 4 The rolling carpet 76 5 Back massage 77 6 The demon 77 Fourth series: integration games 77 1 Person to person, Quebec-style 77 2 The bear of Poitiers 78 3 The chair 78 4 Leapfrog 79 5 The Brueghel game 79 6 Stick in the mud 80 7 Grandmother’s footsteps 80 8 Millipede 80 9 Apple dance 81 10 Sticky paper 81 11 The wooden sword of Paris 81 12 American football (aka British bulldog) 82 13 Three Irish duels 82 14 Little packets 83 15 Cat and mouse 83 CONTENTS i x 16 Homage to Tex Avery – cat and dog(s) 84 17 The handkerchief game (aka the hat game, aka dog and bone) 84 18 Good day 85 19 Cadavre exquis (aka consequences) 85 20 The parachute 86 21 Balance with an object 86 Fifth series: gravity 86 1 Horizontality sequence 87 2 Verticality sequence 88 3 Sequence of rectilinear and circular movements 89 II LISTENING TO WHAT WE HEAR 92 First series: rhythm 92 1 A round of rhythm and movement 92 2 Game of rhythm and movement 93 3 Changing rhythms 93 4 The machine of rhythms 94 5 The Peruvian ball game 96 6 The clapping series 97 7 West Side Story 98 8 The Portuguese rhythmic shoes 99 9 The two brooms 100 10 The four brooms 101 11 Horseshoe rhythms 101 12 Circular rhythms 101 13 The big chief 101 14 The orchestra and the conductor 101 15 Rhythm dialogue in teams 102 16 Chain rhythm dialogue 102 17 Pretend Brazilian ‘Indians’ 102 18 Lines of five 104 19 The president’s bodyguards 104 20 Walk, stop, justify 104 21 Carnival in Rio 104 22 Bolivian mimosas 105 23 How many ‘A’s in a single ‘A’? 106 24 Two by three by Bradford 106 CONTENTS x 25 Crossing the room 107 26 Circle of names of Belo Horizonte 107 27 Circle of rhythms of Toronto 107 Second series: melody 108 1 Orchestra 108 2 Music and dance 108 Third series: sounds and noises 108 1 Sound and movement 108 2 Ritual sound 109 Fourth series: the rhythm of respiration 109 1 Lying on your back completely relaxed 110 2 Leaning against a wall 110 3 Standing up straight 110 4 Breathe in slowly 110 5 Explosion 110 6 Breathe in slowly while lifting the arms 111 7 The pressure cooker 111 8 Breathe in as quickly as possible 111 9 Breathe in as slowly as possible 111 10 Breathe in deeply through the mouth 111 11 Breathe in with clear definition and lots of energy 111 12 Two groups 112 13 Breathe out, standing in a circle 112 14 One actor pretends to pull the stopper out of another’s body 112 15 A, E, I, O, U 113 16 All the actors, standing facing the wall 113 17 Two groups of actors, facing each other 113 18 With their bodies in maximum possible contact with the floor 113 19 Lying on their backs on tables 114 Fifth series: internal rhythms 114 1 Rhythmic images 114 III DYNAMISING SEVERAL SENSES 114 The blind series 115 1 The point of focus, the embrace and the handshake 115 2 Noises 116 CONTENTS x i 3 The imaginary journey 117 4 The glass cobra 118 5 One blind line, one sighted line 118 6 The magnet – positive and negative 119 7 Swedish multiple sculpture 120 8 The vampire of Strasbourg 120 9 The blind car 121 10 What is the object? 121 11 The smell of hands 122 12 The figure-of-eight chicane 122 13 Goalkeeper 122 14 Friend and enemy 122 15 Draw your own body 123 16 Modelling clay 124 17 Touch the colour 124 18 The blind person and the bomb 125 19 Find the hand 125 20 The siren’s song 125 21 Find a convenient back 126 22 The melodic hand 126 23 The sound of the seven doorways 127 24 Recognising the ‘Aaah!’ 127 The space series 127 1 Without leaving a single space in the room empty 127 2 Instead of simply saying ‘Stop’, the Joker says a number 128 3 The Joker says a number and a geometric figure 128 4 The Joker says a number and a part of the body 128 5 The Joker calls out a colour and an item of clothing 128 6 The participants run slowly 128 7 The participants touch each other 129 IV SEEING WHAT WE LOOK AT 129 The mirrors sequence 129 1 The plain mirror 130 2 Subject and image swap roles 130 3 Subject–image, image–subject 130 4 Everyone joins hands 131 CONTENTS xii 5 The two lines form a curve 132 6 Symmetrical groups 132 7 The mirror breaks 133 8 Changing partners 133 9 The distorting mirror 134 10 The narcissistic mirror 134 11 The rhythmic mirror 135 12 Unification 135 The modelling sequence 136 1 The sculptor touches the model 136 2 The sculptor doesn’t touch the model 137 3 The sculptors spread out around the room 138 4 The sculptors fashion a single sculpture together 138 5 Sculpture with four or five people 138 The puppet sequence 138 1 String puppet 139 2 String puppet with rod 139 Image games 139 1 Complete the image 139 2 Ball games 140 3 Boxing match 141 4 One person we fear, one person is our protector 141 5 Furnish the empty space 142 6 Atmosphere of snow 142 7 Building character relations 143 8 Characters in movement 143 9 Observation 143 10 Complementary activities 143 11 What has changed? 144 12 Tell your own story 144 13 The antiquated telephone exchange 144 14 Concentration 144 15 Animals 145 16 Professions 146 17 The balancing circle 147 18 The ‘Indian’ in the city, the city dweller in the forest 148 CONTENTS xiii Games of mask and ritual 148 1 Follow the master 148 2 Follow two masters – who metamorphose into each other 149 3 Rotation of masks 149 4 Unification of masks 149 5 Collective creation of a mask 150 6 Addition of masks 150 7 Pushing the mask to its extremity and nullifying it 150 8 Following the master in his own mask 150 9 Changing masks 151 10 Mask exchange 151 11 The masks of the actors themselves 152 12 Substitution of mask 153 13 Separation of mask, ritual and motivation 153 14 Changing a whole set of masks into a different social class 154 15 Making the mask all-encompassing 155 16 Changing actors mid-ritual 156 17 A round of masks in different circumstances 156 18 Natural and ridiculous 156 19 Several actors on stage 156 20 The game of complementary roles 157 21 The politicians game 157 22 Exchange of masks 157 23 Exchange of roles 158 24 Fainting at Fréjus 158 25 The designated leader 158 26 The clown of Amsterdam 159 27 The animals of Vienna 159 28 Looking first at one another and then at the same spot 159 29 Cookies 159 The image of the object 160 1 The found object 160 2 The object transformed 161 3 The object created out of simple things 161 4 Homage to Magritte – ‘This bottle is not a bottle’ 161 The invention of space and the spatial structures of power 162 1 Space and territory 162 2 Inventing the space in a room 162 CONTENTS xiv 3 The great game of power 163 4 Chairs in the empty space 163 5 Where is my place? 163 6 Six chairs 164 7 Photographing the image 164 Games involving the creation of characters 165 1 Murder at the Hotel Agato 165 2 Cops and robbers 165 3 The embassy ball 166 4 The child’s dream – what I wanted to be when I grew up 166 5 The child’s fear 167 6 What grown-ups wanted me to be 168 7 The opposite of myself 168 8 The two revelations of Saint Teresa 169 9 The fighting cocks 170 10 Catchphrases 170 11 What am I? What do I want? 170 12 The blank character 170 V THE MEMORY OF THE SENSES 171 Reconnecting memory, emotion and imagination 171 1 Memory: remembering yesterday 171 2 Memory and emotion: remembering a day in the past 172 3 Memory and emotion and imagination 172 4 Remembering an actual oppression 173 5 Rehearsal on the stage of the imagination 173 6 Extrapolation 174 IMAGE THEATRE 174 Image techniques: models and dynamisations 176 1(a) Image of the word: illustrating a subject with your body 176 1(b) Image of the word: illustrating a subject using other people’s bodies 181 2 Image of transition 185 3 Multiple image of oppression 186 4 Multiple image of happiness 189 CONTENTS x v 5 Image of the group 191 6 Ritual gesture 193 7 Ritual 198 8 Rituals and masks 201 9 The image of the hour 201 10 The kinetic image 202 11 The merry-go-round of images 202 Images of transition – the technique in action 203 Examples from Europe 203 New Image Theatre techniques: the cop in the head 206 1 Dissociation – thought, speech, action 207 2 The analytical image: the multiple mirror of how others see us 208 3 Somatisation 211 4 The circuit of rituals 211 5 The three wishes 212 6 The polyvalent image 213 7 The screen image 213 8 The image of the image 214 Four very simple demonstrations of embryos of Forum Theatre pieces, based on projected images 215 REHEARSAL EXERCISES FOR ANY KIND OF PLAY 217 Exercises with or without script 217 1 Improvisation 217 2 The dark room 219 3 One story told by several people 219 4 Change the story 219 5 One line spoken by several actors 220 Games of emotional dynamisation 220 1 Breaking the oppression 220 2 The oppressor’s confession 222 Emotional warm-up exercises 222 1 Abstract emotion 222 2 Abstract emotion with animals 223 3 Abstract emotion, following the master 223 4 Animals or vegetables in emotional situations! 223 CONTENTS xvi 5 Ritual in which everyone becomes an animal 224 6 Stimulation of the dormant parts of ourselves 224 Ideological warm-up 225 1 Dedication 225 2 Reading newspapers 225 3 The evocation of historic events 226 4 Lessons 226 Exercises for the preparation of a Forum Theatre model or for the rehearsal of other kinds of theatre 226 1 Play to the deaf 226 2 Stop! Think! 227 3 Interrogation 227 4 The reconstruction of the crime 228 5 Analytical rehearsal of motivation 228 6 Analytical rehearsal of emotion 229 7 Analytical rehearsal of style 229 8 Opposite circumstances 229 9 Artificial pause 230 10 Self-interrogation 230 11 Opposite thought 230 12 Rehearsal of the cue 231 13 Two touches 231 14 Silence on set – Action! 232 15 Invisible characters 232 16 Before and after 232 17 Transference of emotion 232 18 Slow motion 233 19 Sensory focus 233 20 Low volume 233 21 Exaggeration 234 22 Free-style rehearsal 234 23 Reconnaissance 234 24 Caricature 235 25 Swapping characters 235 26 Need versus will 235 27 The rhythm of scenes 236 28 Rashomon 236 29 Keep talking 237 CONTENTS xvii 30 The ceremony 237 31 Secret whispers 237 32 I don’t believe you 238 33 Long Beach telegram 238 34 Holy theatre 238 35 Analogy 238 36 The tick-tock sequence 238 4 THE EARLY FORMS OF FORUM THEATRE 241 Introduction 241 The rules of the game 242 Dramaturgy 242 Staging 243 The performance game 243 Examples of Forum Theatre 245 1 Agrarian reform seen from a public bench 245 2 The people judge a secret policeman 247 3 Leader at work, slave in the home 248 4 The return to work at the Crédit Lyonnais 249 5 The nuclear power station 249 5 FORUM THEATRE: DOUBTS AND CERTAINTIES: INCORPORATING A NEW METHOD OF REHEARSING AND DEVISING A FORUM THEATRE MODEL 253 Twenty fundamental topics 254 1 Oppression or aggression? 254 2 The style of the model 256 3 Do the problems have to be urgent or not? Should they be simple or complex? 258 4 Do we have to arrive at a solution or not? 259 5 Does the model of the future action need to be depicted or not? 260 6 Model or anti-model? Error or doubt? 260 7 The conduct of the Joker 260 8 Theatricality or reflection? 262 9 The staging 263 10 The function of the warm-up 264 11 The function of the actor 265 CONTENTS xviii 12 The repeated scene 266 13 Macrocosm and microcosm 266 14 How to replace a character without transforming it into another 267 15 What is a ‘good’ oppression? 268 16 Who can replace whom? 269 17 How should a ‘model’ be rehearsed? 271 18 Can a forum change themes? 273 19 Can people remain ‘spectators’ in a Forum Theatre session? 274 20 When does a session of Theatre of the Oppressed end? 275 6 FIRST EXPERIENCES WITH INVISIBLE THEATRE 277 Examples of Invisible Theatre 277 1 Sexual harassment 277 2 Queen Silvia’s baby 280 3 Racism I: the Greek 282 4 Racism II: the black woman 283 5 Picnic in the streets of Stockholm 285 6 The audience’s children 287 7 ARTISTIC CREATION AND DIVINE MADNESS: A MEDITATION ON ART AND THE MIRACULOUS 289 Passion and art 293 The mad artist and the artist madman 296 POSTSCRIPT: THE PEDAGOGY OF FEAR – THEATRE AND THE TWIN TOWERS: AN ESSAY AFTER 11 SEPTEMBER, 2001

Games for Actors and Non-Actors is the classic and best selling book by the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal. It sets out the principles and practice of Boal's revolutionary Method, showing how theatre can be used to transform and liberate everyone – actors and non-actors alike! This thoroughly updated and substantially revised second edition includes: two new essays by Boal on major recent projects in Brazil Boal's description of his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company a revised introduction and translator's preface a collection of photographs taken during Boal's workshops, commissioned for this edition new reflections on Forum Theatre