ANTECEDENTES TEÓRICOS

Stemming from a Portuguese heritage, Augusto Boal was born in Rio, Brazil in 1931. Theatrical expression was already evident from a young age. He (2001:75) liked to make plays in his parental home as a young boy in which his family were asked to perform the various roles. The roles in his dramas were interchangeable as they were passed from one family member to another as and when their activities allowed them to entertain his wishes.

Siblings and cousins were the actors. As there were many characters, each person had to play a variety of roles. Perhaps then I began to imagine the ‘Coringa’ [Joker] System: the same character was represented by various siblings, as well as each playing several other characters. There was no private ownership of the characters by the actors: each scene was told by whoever was available, all the characters interpreted by whoever liked them most. Here already I was using the form ‘Arena tells of …’ and ‘The Boal brothers and their cousins tell of …’ (Boal 2001:75).

The entire theatrical ritual was observed, including the buying of tickets. Basing his plays on the story lines found in his mother’s weekly reading material, Boal fulfilled the role of director and prompter to make sure the author’s text was respected while the brothers preferred to improvise which inevitably let to disagreements and the need for negotiation and compromise. Even as a young boy Boal was a keen observer of people and would be able to typify and copy the behaviour of the various clients who frequented his father’s bakery.

3.2.1.1. Choice of career

When it came to him choosing a career his father encouraged him to study chemistry. His father explained that from an earning perspective, the person in charge of producing yeast (a necessity in his father’s bakery) made far more money than the person who physically sold it to the bakery. Wanting to please his father and ensuring a fall-back option if his artistic aspirations should fail, Boal solved his dilemma by doing both. He gave as much of his energy to learning all about the world of chemical substances as he did to that of the theatre. Successfully he combined the two interests, managing to pass his grades as a Chemical

Engineering student at the National School of Chemistry, Rio de Janeiro while at the same time pursuing his theatrical aspirations through the student body of this school. He also took on the role of the Cultural Director of their student organisation which worked well as he was expected to organise “conferences, exhibitions, debates” (Boal 2001:107). This enabled him to achieve two of his aims: “the opportunity to meet important people I admired and the opportunity to get into the theatres free” (Boal 2001:108). Frustrated that this only made it possible to see the work of many influential international and local artists, he decided to interview the writers, actors and directors he admired (Boal 2001: 108; Babbage, 2005: 5). It led to the development of a friendship with Nelson Rodrigues, a local playwright who wrote about Brazilian people, and with Abdias Nascimento who was a “crucial friend at the beginning of my career”. The latter instilled in him an admiration for black people who faced and excelled despite prejudice. As Boal (2001:112) put it: “I began to like subversives, heroic characters, fighters.”

3.2.1.2. Sojourn in New York

Boal’s siblings studied a year longer than Boal so his father, fair in how he treated each of his children, gave him an extra year to specialise and study in the US (Boal 2001:117). Investigating his options Boal wrote to drama critic, historian and artist-producer, John Gassner (1902–1966), to enquire if he could study playwriting under him. Gassner wrote back that he would be teaching at Columbia University in New York the next year (Boal 2001:117). So, in 1952, this young aspirant playwright went to study playwriting in New York (Babbage 2005:5). According to Babbage, Boal was influenced by Gassner’s ‘The Duality of Theatre’, in which he states that the theatre practices “both illusion and anti-illusion”. Gassner taught him that the audience can be exposed to both modalities as they can appreciate realism and understand a theatrical effect that follows straight after that (Babbage 2005:8).

While working with Gassner he first encountered the work of Bertolt Brecht, (German playwright famous for Epic Theatre, known for emphasising the theatrical medium to the audience and for the verfremdungseffekt) which “meant: seeing from a distance, without involving oneself” (Boal 2006:73). Gassner also introduced him to the work of Constantin Stanislavski (Russian actor and theatre director who developed psychological realism; where an actor taps into emotional memory for character portrayal and is known for method acting) and the Actor’s Studio. Due to those sessions, Boal developed enormous respect for the art of being a good actor who brings to life their character. “To see an actor transform him/herself, giving life to his/her dormant potentialities, is marvellous. It is the best way to understand the human being: seeing an actor create” (Boal 2001:129).

Having to hold his own in a foreign country employing a language he had not yet mastered sufficiently, Boal became extra aware that “the language of words is but one of the languages we use in our dialogues. There are the languages of the voice, of the body, of movement, and then there are the unconscious languages.” As the language of words was failing him in a second language context, he “paid attention to the rest” (Boal 2001:124). Over a period, his command of English improved.

Through his friend Nascimento he also met with American poet Langston Hughes who made him aware of the Black Experimental Theatre in Harlem and who introduced him to The Writer’s Group in Brooklyn (Boal 2001:129; Babbage 2005:6). Over the years he read and re- read Cervantes Don Quixote and Shakespeare plays. They became a constant in his life. (Boal 2001:130). His first attempt at directing his own plays led to “The Horse and the Saint and the House across the Street” (Boal 2001) being staged together with his playwriting friends from the Brooklyn Writer’s group. Although none of these actors were professionals, they performed with gusto in 1955 in the Marlin theatre, on Broadway, just before Boal was to return home to Rio de Janeiro.