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📜 Boal, Augusto. 2002. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Translated by Andrew Jackson. London: Routledge
In short, this book showcases a socially conscious face of theater improv. Responsibility replacing middle-class entertainment. The author, Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theater practitioner of many roles, known for a performance form called Theatre of the Oppressed. Boal's previous work, and its offshoots, serve as important references for the Games for Actors…, and grand theories are present here too, especially in the beginning, but, in fact, much of the text is quite direct and practical.
A collection of games is by far the biggest part of the book. These are short activities usually serving as warm-ups or ice-breakers (with a few outliers), split into categories. These categories are listed below with a starting page from the second edition, which is available in a few places online.
- Feeling what we touch (restructuring muscular relations) — p. 50
- Listening to what we hear — p. 92
- Dynamising several senses — p. 114
- Seeing what we look at — p. 129
- The memory of the senses — p. 171
Then come "Rehearsal exercises for any kind of play" (p. 217), with much more focused, specialist, stage-centered techniques. Finally, the book gets back to broad strokes and theorizing.
Listening to what we hear will be our "favorite" chapter, and here's how it is divided further: rhythm — melody — sounds and noises — rhythm of respiration — internal rhythms.
The names of two last sections hint at one of book's important principles, the unity of human experience (including opposing the idea of body-mind duality). This whole "musical" section certainly doesn't focus strictly on ears, and has even less to do with intellectual ideas of "musical work" etc. This is theater that gets to important social issues, but starts with the body. What's more, games interesting from our narrow point of view are also seen in places scattered throughout the book.
One of the more fascinating aspects of Boal's writing is a clearly visible culture of origin. There are many references and contexts that are rarely employed in Western literature of this kind. To name a few, this book does involve recurring mentions of: Catholicism and its rituals, boxing match as an important social event, football (the one played with feet), or sexuality. All witnessed in passing, not as topics to be explored.
Some games from the book we already have. Musical Chairs (p. 69) is in the classic form without live performance. Mating Game (a.k.a. Animals, p. 145) is in a version with a much more elaborated scenario which actually includes the pantomime of mating between the animals. Quite a few games are done blindfolded, focused on listening. With more than 200 activities in total, many will be familiar, but as a focus example let's have a look at one, The Siren's Song (p. 125). It is not here as the most representative example, it's a bit unusual even within Boal's collection, but it strongly engages with central themes of the book:
Very difficult, very delicate. Each actor must think of an oppression she has actually experienced or is still experiencing. Then everyone closes their eyes and assembles in the middle of the room. Whoever wants to start utters a sound (a cry, groan, shout, lamentation, etc.) which must be the translation into sound of the oppression she has in mind. The Joker takes this first person by the hand and leads her on a journey around the room, eventually stopping in a corner. Same with the second person, who has started a different sound. Three or four others follow, each in their own way, with their own call. It is important for the Joker to choose quite different sounds to inhabit the four corners of the room. Then the four let loose their cries together. Those remaining in the middle listen to the four and each choose the sound which best suits their own oppression; four groups form. After this everybody opens their eyes, and they make four circles, and, in their separate circles, each person recounts to the others the oppression she was thinking of, the episode which was in her mind. It is no magic that within each circle, the story is almost always about the same type of oppression, on the same theme.
The Joker is for Boal basically a facilitator, in part a theatre director, understood in the spirit of utmost democracy. Most of the games in the book require facilitation. The Joker would be tasked with picking a game fitting the group (alas, there are no indices for help with that), deciding on an exact variation of a few provided, and leading the game's scenario. Probable intended readers are hopeful future Jokers.
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