New-Play Development

Abstract

I begin with these words from Augusto Boal because, in his remarkable career as a creator and facilitator of internationally renowned theatre systems (the Theatre of the Oppressed and Legislative Theatre) and in his profound work as a mentor and motivator of teachers, actors, social workers and workers in numerous fields and countries, he has, above all, taught us the value of happiness in troubled times. Boal’s vision and practices have emerged out of the most difficult possible political circumstances. He was tortured under the military dictatorship in his native Brazil, and as an exile, despite the struggles of language barriers, he managed to create revolutionary and subversive ways of using theatre to animate issues and individual lives, before returning to Brazil to become, of all things, a Vereador, a member of Parliament. And, amazingly, he continued to use theatre to animate the political and cultural concerns of his constituents. At the core of Boal’s dramaturgy is the dual meaning of the verb “to act”: to perform and to take action (Boal 20).AIongside this, Boal’s work teaches us the dual meaning of the word “play”: the written creation, often at the origin of a performance, and the transformative act of creation that animates this written work.