Vindicated: A Letter from Augusto Boal

Abstract

I am very happy that you are going to publish something about Rio's Festival. It was really very important, very exciting!!! We missed you here. Forgive me for not having answered your fax before, but I was working (two full months) in Paris, London, New York, Omaha, Laurence, and Calcutta. In relation to your questions: I signed a Convention with the City Government to make seven minifestivals of Theatre of the Oppressed [TO] before the big 7th International Festival of TO last July [I993...]. In order to prepare the Brazilian groups (people from trade unions, schools, slums, children of the street, etc.) it was necessary to produce the mini-festivals in popular quarters [neighborhoods where the poor live] of Rio de Janeiro, and so we did. The City helped with an amount of less than $3,000 U.S. dollars that were used to hire buses to move the participants around, hire sound and lights, buy sandwiches. This meant less than $500 per mini-festival. Before signing this Convention, me and Helena Severo (the City Secretary of Culture) went to the Chamber [of city legislators] during an official session, in the presence of most Vereadores [representatives], and announced our intention of doing this joint project. The text of this announcement was published in our official [legislators'] newspaper-everything that we speak at the microphone is reproduced there. So everyone knew about that project and no one found it not to be legal. Three months later, when the mini-festivals had already been done, there was a sequence of very violent sessions in the Chamber. The Mayor forced some laws to pass which were intended to favor the banks (who would no longer be obliged to pay fines for delays in paying City taxes!) and the health insurance companies that were pardoned of more than half of their debts (over 20 million dollars!). Usually, I am very polite and educated during the sessions. That day, I did what I should not have done (but could not help it)-I went furiously to the microphone and said: "Your Excellences who voted with the Mayor, you are all either thieves or jackasses!" Of course, I should not have said that, but my colleagues of the Workers' Party said that I was right and should not apologize. One hour later, another Vereador protested against my speech and said: "The Noble Vereador Augusto Boal (that's the way we have to address one another!) should not have said that we are either thieves or jackasses! His Excellency knows very well that no one here is a jackass!!!" Monday following that week, [the newspaper] O Dia started its campaign against me, publishing all kinds of lies and accusing me of signing