January 18th- Forum theatre, Resposibilities and to be Dramatised or not?

Jan 18^th

Devising a forum theatre,

What is Forum Theatre?

How did we use it?

What worked well and even better if...?

Forum Theatre Wikipedia Definition- Forum Theatre is a type of theatre created by the innovative and influential practitioner Augusto Boal as part of what he calls his "Theatre of the Oppressed." While practicing earlier in his career, Boal would apply 'simultaneous dramaturgy'. In this process the actors or audience members could stop a performance, often a short scene in which a character was being oppressed in some way. The audience would suggest different actions for the actors to carry out on-stage in an attempt to change the outcome of what they were seeing. This was an attempt to undo the traditional actor partition and bring audience members into the performance, to have an input into the dramatic action they were watching.

Origin and History- Wikipedia- Boal developed and practised an orthodox methodology for forum theatre based on the interaction between his actors and his so-called "spect-actors". The spect-actor attempts to overturn the oppression using some method unused by the actors, whilst the actors portraying the oppressors improvise to attempt to bring the production to its original, scripted ending. If the audience believes that the spect-actor's actions are too unrealistic to be utilized in reality, they may call out "magic!", and the spect-actor must modify their actions accordingly. If this spect-actor fails in overthrowing the oppression, the actor resumes their character, and continues the production until another spect-actor calls out "stop! or freeze!" and attempts a different method.
If and when the oppression has been overthrown by the spect-actors, the production changes again the spect-actors now have the opportunity to replace the oppressors, and find new ways of challenging the oppressed character. In this way a more realistic depiction of the oppression can be made by the audience, who are often victims of the oppression. The whole process is designed to come to a conclusion through the consideration of opposing arguments, rather than where an argument is one-sided and pushed from the actors with no chance of reply or counter-argument.



Augusto Boal


In this lesson we created a piece of forum theatre within our earlier social issues group. Forum theatre is where the audience can stop the performance, join in as one of the characters and have a say in what happens during the performance. Usually a joker stands at the side inviting the audience to take over. A member of the audience can be the reason why a performance has a completely different ending to before. In our Anorexia performance we created two different versions of how our performance could go. Then we tried it out on the class. Seb, Francesca and Tom went first and Emily and Frankie had a go at playing a role. Then Frankie, Olly and Jack went next and again we had to play a character after watching it once through. Unfortunately we ran out of time to perform ours but I still have a really good idea on what the term means and how to use it now thanks to performing the other groups several times. 

I think seeing the performance once or more times through really helped get to terms with it and using forum theatre several times with different audience members helped us see how versatile the two performances could be. I think it would be even better if we didn’t giggle, laugh or mess about but because we are all such good friends we find it hard to frame ourselves when working together. Even though we giggled and worked quite noisily I still think we were very productive.

Are there some subjects that shouldn’t be dramatised?

What are our responsibilities as a playwright/ deviser?

I think you can dramatise all subjects in drama no matter how sensitive they are, as long as you do it maturely and sensitively, taking the audience style into account. They shouldn’t take it too far and make it too dramatic eg. East Enders. Actors should research the topic first to get an idea of the seriousness of this topic. Then they should research their audience types relating to each one in a different way, broaching the subject differently to continue with the sensitivity for some audience members. They shouldn’t mock the subject or play around with it too much.

What are our responsibilities as a playwright/ deviser?
As a deviser my responsibilities are to act according to my audience. I should think about the audience and decide whether the materiel or topic is suitable and sensitive for the audience wither in age range or subject wise.

Does drama have the power to change opinions/ attitudes/ the way we see the world/ the choices we make?
A good set of actors do have the ability to change our perceptive on anything in life whether it just be that subject matter. I think they can change how a person acts and make the world a better place... (Cheesy or what?!) For example:

 A bully going to see a play about a bully (cloudbusting) and seeing just how much the bully regrets it and what the victim is really thinking.

A victim going to see cloudbusting and being in distress because of the bully (being able to relate to the victim).

I think the way an actor broaches a subject and performs a play can have a big impact on the outcome of it as broaching and performing it right can help you relate to the characters and how they feel.
Source of Foeum Theatre and Augusto Boal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_theatre - Wikipedia