Augusto Boal brings the audience into the spotlight and creates a platform for them to engage freely in the discussion and dialogue as well as contribute to the event. It adds the spectator as a player in the game. Seeing the process of creating theater as a language in which one should be literate in is fundamental as an artist. Especially one trying to dissect an issue, the process or development of the piece is seen as the language of telling the story. Thus not being in any way passive but rather through inviting the audience in on the story, we place a responsibility on them to come forward and engage in the work. They are being asked to continue the dialogue or story in the moment as we perceive it. I do wonder if giving so much freedom and responsibility to the audience can sometimes backfire when a discussion turns into an argument or when it deters from the story? How is this dealt with?
“The Joker System provided a perfect aesthetic vehicle to tell not only the story of Rodney King and the ensuing uprising, but a larger, ever changing and ever-the-same, storyo of violence, racism, and resistance in the US. Creating UPSET! In the mode of the Joker System provided a means to incorporate the teens curiosity, dismay, outrage, confusion, fear, and inspiration in relation to the subject matter of the play within the play.” Here's a bit of extra background on the joker system: “The Joker System laid the theoretical foundation for the Theatre of the Oppressed, the umbrella term Boal employed for all his subsequent theoretical developments. Even in the Forum Theatre, his most popular theatrical format, the lineaments of the Joker system are apparent. The Joker System began in 1965, when the Arena Theatre performed Arena Narrates Zumbí. The word “Joker” had, in Boal’s mind, the same significance as the “Joker” playing card, a card which has more mobility than a...
Comments
Post a Comment