[Xmca-l] Re: Boal and Brecht

[Haydi Zulfei]

Oh ! David ! So happy to see you here again ! Welcome really ! I have many unread mails but I tried yours in the hope I might come across some old friend of ours which I now see got realized . 
Best
Haydi
 

________________________________
 From: kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net>
To: Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
Sent: Monday, 27 January 2014, 14:21:29
Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: Boal and Brecht
  


It's not a spam, Haydi! I just resubscribed after being mysteriously desubscribed. Apparently a few bugs in the works, still.... 
  
(If you get this, and the list doesn't, can you repost?) 
  
A few years ago, there was some discussion on this list of Augusto Boal and the "Theatre of the Oppressed". I've been reading some of his work and trying to make sense of some interesting data I've collected from children doing classroom role plays (in one case, the kids use their mother tongue first and then try the role play in English and in the second case they enact a scene in English and discuss some of the moral issues in Korean). 
 
Within the Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal distinguishes an "Image Theatre", a "Forum Theatre", and an "Invisible Theatre". Am I right in thinking that "Image Theatre" is mostly NON-verbal, while "Forum Theatre" is more or less what we have been doing in class (that is, a scripted performance and some discussion of ethico-political issues), while "Invisible Theatre" is a kind of public performance, along the lines of a Michael Moore documentary, or the old show "Candid Camera"? 
  
I recently returned from a conference in New Zealand (Hi, Eugene and Ana!) where I met a woman who had actually worked with Boal. She told me that Boal had essentially no following in Brazil or in the other countries where he worked, because people often found it impossible to deal with the government backlash that his work provoked. Boal himself talks about this problem in a youtube interview: 
  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOgv91qQyJc 
  
(see around 6:50)
 
  
The other question I have is the relationship between Boal and Brecht. On the one hand, Boal seems very interested in Brechtian ideas about a theatre which teaches alternative possibilities. But on the other much of what he writes seems quite hostile to language, and of course the idea of deceiving the audience into thinking that they are not observing a performance but an unmediated social reality is quite un-Brechtian. Can anybody comment on this? 
 
David Kellogg 
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies 
  
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보낸사람: Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>
>받는사람 : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>날짜: 2014년 1월 27일 월요일, 16시 48분 11초 +0900
>제목: [Xmca-l] Re: Boal and Brecht
>
>Hi
>Blank ! May you resend it ! Or is this a spam ?  H
>
>
>________________________________
>From: kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net>
>To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu 
>Sent: Monday, 27 January 2014, 7:43:16
>Subject: [Xmca-l] Boal and Brecht
>
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