drama course 2023

Drama course

We started the 2023 iteration of the flexweek drama course with a measure of trepidation, as we had decided to embark on a new, more ambitious approach. Instead of giving students scripts to learn and perform, this time we asked them to write and perform their own play. And not any traditional kind of play, but an interactive audience experience of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. The plays that students wrote all explored a facet of oppression, and featured a protagonist who endured an unpleasant fate as a victim of oppressive forces. These plays were then performed once for an audience, after which they were performed as Forum Theatre. According to this unique approach of Boal's, the audience were invited to pause the play at any point, step into the action and take part. Their challenge was to bring the play to a more desirable conclusion for the protagonist, while the original actors improvised their roles as oppressors in order to try and keep the play heading towards its original conclusion.

Despite the obvious difficulties this approach presents the actors, our intrepid students exceeded our expectations and were able to not only produce convincing scenarios, but also, by tussling with the audience over the plays' outcomes in the Forum Theatre stage, to dramatically explore the ways in which oppression plays out in the real world.