Abstract
This chapter examines a Forum Theatre process to argue that certain forms of applied theatre can effectively shift players in and out of role-play. This shift can be very useful for groups and facilitators who desire reflexive intercultural dialogue: the transition into role-play enables the group to broach new, high-stakes topics, whereas the transition out of role-play enables a frank assessment of differences among the players. Following a group of teenagers at an international summer camp from Iraq, Nigeria, the United States, and Kyrgyzstan, the case study offers a detailed, intimate portrayal of an intense encounter, born in play, that ultimately enabled participants to better understand their cultural differences.
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Notes
- 1.
For a concise explanation of Forum Theatre by Augusto Boal, who developed the form, see Augusto Boal 2002, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 241-245.
- 2.
For a basic introduction to Playback Theatre, see Jo Salas 2013, Improvising Real Life: Personal Stories in Playback Theatre, New Paltz, NY: Tusitala Publishing. For more analysis and interrogation of the form, see Nick Rowe 2007, Playing the Other: Dramatizing Personal Narratives in Playback Theatre, London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers; and Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas 2021, Personal Stories in Public Spaces: Essays on Playback Theatre by its Founders, New Paltz, NY: Tusitala Publishing.
- 3.
The video is in five parts, and it shows Augusto Boal facilitating a Forum Theatre performance as the capstone of a residency at Harvard University. Parts 2–5 are linked to Part 1: Ernest Hartwell 2012. Augusto Boal, Forum Theatre, Harvard-2003 (Part 1 of 5). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71sLJ-j5LE
- 4.
Shifra Schonmann gestures at the desirability of harnessing this quality of play when she argues that drama classrooms ought to provide students the opportunity to “oscillate between reality and unreality” (2002: 22). Nilanjana Premaratna makes a related point in her own scholarship on Forum Theatre, though she doesn’t elaborate on it extensively: she says that “the tension created in disrupting the ideological boundary between fiction and reality is what creates the space for contemplation and action that transforms the violent structures [depicted in forum theatre]” (2018: 179).
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Leffler, E. (2022). Punctured Play: A Dramaturgy of Absorption, Interruption, and Interrogation. In: Applied Theatre and Intercultural Dialogue. Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance, Learning, and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98515-8_6
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