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Reviews / Comptes Rendus
| Augusto Boal, Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics (Routledge: New York, 2001) |
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HAVING OFFERED to help the Workers' Party (PT - Partido Trabalhadores) with a 1992 election campaign in Rio de Janeiro, Augusto Boal agreed to run as a candidate for muncipal office. After all, politics is not a form of theatre? Assuming he had little chance of winning, he imagined this to be the last act of his struggling Rio-based Theatre of the Oppressed Company. Neither did the PT consider Boal a serious candidate, hoping merely for some good publicity and happy to let Boal and his company run their campaign anyway they liked. It was, of course, theatrical. But, with a heavy heart Boal made his way to a meeting with the PT executive expecting to hear the predictable and long-expected news that he was losing. But the PT executive was worried. It looked like Boal was going to win and it was time to ensure that he understood more about the party he was running for. Boal did win and so began another chapter in his lifelong career of reinventing his practice of theatre — sometimes referred to as a rehearsal for the revolution. |
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This anecdote is one of the many that I have heard Augusto Boal relate in his flamboyant and moving style of storytelling. And, while not to be found in his charming autobiography, Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics, you will find, lovingly detailed, the roads that Boal walked and fashioned to reach the surprising destinations to which theatre and politics leads. |
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Hamlet and the Baker's Son is the moving account of Boal's lifelong and ongoing love of theatre and humanity. Beginning with a romp through his childhood that, not surprisingly, is reminiscent of images of the world-famous Rio Carnival, Boal shares the loving tapestry of his early life. Born in 1931 to Portuguese immigrants, Boal spent his childhood in the historic neighbourhood of Santa Tereza. The first third of the book is devoted to Boal's boyhood, lovingly and playfully recounted in a chapter titled "A Long Time Ago, I Was a Boy." Despite the distance of time referred to, Boal's storytelling is vivid and immediate. His memory for detail and his skill with words only wets the appetite for more. The story moves too quickly for the curious, who might like to linger in this enchanted childhood of a baker's son. |
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Augusto Boal, director, writer, educator, and politician, is the creator of Theatre of the Oppressed, a practice of critical dialogue for social change that is now practiced around the world. Used for many purposes, from resistance to racism, to violence against women, and to many other forms of oppression, Theatre of the Oppressed grew out of Boal's persistent search for invention and reinvention, of a form and practice of theatre that could give voice to the powerless, the mass of humans least able to afford attending theatres. Theatre of Oppressed, as one of many forms of theatre aimed at social change, is remarkable for its ability to deal with the complexities of oppression in a popular way, which is to say that it requires no great ability with literacy, philosophical concepts, and political acumen to be an active and respected participant. |
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This autobiography fills in much of the picture of Boal's life of which he has often spoken and written. In his previous books, Theatre of the Oppressed (1990), Rainbow of Desire (1995), and Legislative Theatre (1998), there are accounts of pivotal experiences that lead, in a way that feels inexorable, to the invention, development, and honing of a practice that Boal has referred to as a "rehearsal for the revolution." The feeling of inexorability is hard to avoid when all one has are the anecdotes that are the turning points in the history of a practice. Now, with this autobiographical account, it is possible to see more of the landscape of a life lived in a changing and violent world out of which grew one of the most powerful forms of theatre of the 20th century. |
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One tale, of parable-intensity, tells of Boal's collusion in the tragic fate of a beloved pet. In both content and form, this tale telegraphs the shape of things to come that might be said to find their ultimate expression in Rainbow of Desire, a form of theatre of the oppressed Boal developed while living in exile in France and which is a method that combines political dialogue with therapy. The tale of the fate of Chibuco the goat is much too delightful to spoil by revealing more in this review. However, two points of form are worth noting. The first and most powerful tone of this tale is one of compassion — that sharing of suffering that is greater than pity and sympathy. Compassion runs through this book like a vein of gold through the rich earth and, while Boal writes with loving humour all the way through, there is a sorrow that builds steadily as you follow this tale, knowing that the horror of jail, torture, and exile will have their moment. This book will break your heart, as it should, so that you as a reader can understand how resistance to oppression can be a wonderful journey and sometimes even result in triumph. |
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The second aspect of the tale of the fate of Chibuco is witness. More than a viewer spectating, witness is an act by a participant who is implicated in the consequences of action. But Boal is no mere single witness. He reveals a startling complexity of personality which is perhaps a clue to his fantastic and persistent creativity. Boal writes: |
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I have always fought with myself — sometimes I live in a state of internal strife. Even as an adult, mature, even at this moment writing this very story, I battle with myself, I argue, dispute, agitate, provoke, contradict. I should tell that story! — no, I shouldn't — who knows?
I always watch myself doing things, hear myself speaking — and I do not always agree with what I do or say. I hold back, take stock, assess, before going ahead. When I disagree, I do so wholeheartedly, disagreeing with the disagreement. It both complicates and enriches things! (49) | |
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This passage is also a clue perhaps to the role of the Joker in theatre of the oppressed work, a combination of educator, director, mediator, facilitator, and emcee. All of Boal's practice is directed with love and compassion towards giving people tools with which they can better understand and resist oppression (that happens to them and with which they collude). Whether he is writing, directing, or producing relatively conventional theatre or using theatre of the oppressed with a rural, peasant community in Peru, or legislative theatre in the favelas of Rio to create new laws, Boal is devoted equally playfull and seriously to the emancipation of people from oppression. |
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This autobiography, that avoids much repeating already-published accounts, is a deeply satisfying companion to Boal's other books. Whether to provoke interest to read more or to answer the questions of those made curious by reading, this tale of a life still in process, carries a wealth of lessons for which we should all feel an urgency. |
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Chris Cavanagh
Catalyst Centre, Toronto
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