Download PDF Version Revolt Magazine, Volume 1 Issue No.4

Why is that person over there? How is it connected,
how is it not connected?’ Most games have a sort
of debriefing. It’s a little session when we’re all
still in a circle and we’ve just finished it, and we
ask, ‘How did that feel? Why?’ And then, ‘Next!’ So
we’re building on thematic structure.
How would you define theatre?
Adam Willson: Theatre is not life. But it’s sort of
like a mirror. In the sense that we look in a mirror,
and we see a really essential part of our being in
the mirror, even though it’s not real...So, maybe an
interesting side-question is what is the difference
between theatre and film. I think the main
difference is that film has a much greater capacity
to plumb the psychological…It’s really about
perspective and playing with this perspective to
get into the inner world. The depth of psychological
attention in theatre is not so deep as with film.
I think at the same time, there’s something
immediately dynamic and important about theatre
that you can’t get in film. And I think part of the
theatre experience is that at the same time as
getting involved and immersed in the plot or activity
onstage, you always have this subliminal sense like
‘I’m watching a play’ or ‘this isn’t real life.’ What’s
interesting about theatre, and you can’t really do
it with film, is this sort of discrepancy. And I think
as an audience member watching a performance
– if it’s a good performance or a challenging
performance – it should be an experience of
continually wrestling back and forth between these
two perspectives. It’s like ‘No, this isn’t real life. I’m
not totally immersed in this. I’m actually sitting in
a chair.’ Wrestling with that and also with ‘yes I’m
totally in this story.’
How does community-based devisement
engage the performers and audience?
Reka: So for example it could be forum theatre,
which I do a lot of as well, and that’s also based
on the Theatre of the Oppressed. Forum theatre
takes a long time, but we eventually get to that
point where we have a beginning, middle, end –
we have a climactic point…What happens is once
the audience has watched the first round, the
facilitators come in (in Theatre of the Oppressed,
they call them Jokers) and act as communicators
between the audience and the actors. Except
in this case, the spectators become the ‘spectactors.’
That’s the terminology for it. We take one
of the major elements or themes that we were
tackling in that play, and we say, ‘Raise your hand
if you’ve ever identified with that or felt that.’
People raise their hands, and then we ask them:
‘If you were Maria or if you were Peter, or another
character, what would you have done?’ Some of
them are not quite sure how to process it, but
they might say, ‘I would’ve told my boss to fuck
off.’ Okay come on over and try it. The actors who
were there continue, but they have to improvise
at this point, right? Then, we clap the audience
member that did that and say, ‘What changed?
Has anything changed?’ So basically, it brings up
a dialogue….‘Can you do that in reality? Can you
tell your boss to fuck off? Can you ask for more
pay?’…So the important pieces are there, but a
play often ends with an ending that is realistic but
not idealistic. So we’re asking a question. We don’t
have an answer to what somebody could’ve done.
We’re asking the audience to help us figure it out…
What we’re hoping is that those solutions that were
figured out we’re all going to take home and then
practice them in real life. Theatre’s just a game.
Photo courtesy of Frontierra Theatre Group.
You can stand up to your boss in theatre, because
it’s fun and ok, and nothing happens, but the point
is to see if we perform these possible solutions
outside.
What is the sort of theatre you would like to
see?
Adam Willson: I’m a big fan of street theatre. I
think a lot of the time it ends up not really being
done the way I would like to see it. What I was
talking about before how when you’re sitting in a
theatre and you’re constantly wrestling with this
‘am I a spectator?’ or ‘am I in the story?’ – I think
the best way to specifically elicit that from an
audience is to have them continually questioning
their role in the situation. The sort of theatre that
I would love to see is the sort of street theatre
that at all times the audience is never quite sure
what they’re seeing- whether it’s a play or it’s a
happening, or it’s just two drunk bums spouting off
nonsense, you know – and working it so that there
may be points of revelation, where the audience
realizes, ‘Ok, I can sort of see what’s going on
now,’ and then continually work with that and try to
turn that over. I would like to see more theatre on
the subways, but not theatre on the subways
like, ‘Hey guys, we’re going to do a play for you, like
we’ve got our costumes on, we’re going to read
some Shakespeare.’ Because I feel that’s a little
too us-and-them, where it’s like ‘You guys are just
commuters coming home from a long day of work,
and we’re going to perform to you, and we’re not
together in this.’ I would like to see the type theatre
that we see on the subway every fucking day,
performed unintentionally.
What is the world climate like for social
theatre?
Reka: The US is very resistant. It’s hard for me to
judge, because I’m very new to the US. I’ve only
been here for two years. But I’ve heard that it’s
very underrepresented, that it’s still at its startup
stage. There are for instance in New York two
masters degrees in social theatre – but one is a 5
year program and one is only a two year program –
at CUNY and NYU. NYU is more focused on theatre
and education, so it’s more institutionalized, more
in a school setting. When I say ‘social theatre’,
for one, it’s like ‘Oh, what is that?’ But also, it’s
like ‘Oh, you mean a teaching artist.’ It’s hard to
explain that no, it’s not that. With the UK, you can
say that it’s like the motherland of many social
theatre companies. It’s very well-funded there, it’s
very well-recognized, and usually you don’t really
have to explain what it is. Practitioners such as my
self get hired by various companies, non-profits, or
NGOs working on certain issues and needing that
branch of the work. I think that’s really important,
because within the educational structure, it’s very
limited: you have theatre, but you don’t really have
the social theatre branch in the US.
What do you think of political theatre?
Adam Willson: I’m pretty skeptical of an
intermingling between any one of the arts and
politics. Obviously the arts have their roots and
orientation and motivation in building a community,
especially theatre. And so that’s political in the
Aristotelian sense of political. At the same time, I
think what people mean by political theatre – it’s
basically using theatre to express a non-artistic
platform. It can be more or less explicit. When it’s
very explicit – it’s like the same thing where you
go to a play and the whole play, the characters are
shouting. After a certain moment, the audience
is going to stop paying attention. I think the same
thing happens when theatre is too sermonizing. I
think the most effective theatre educates you in
something that you weren’t aware of before, but
it does it in a disguised way. So, it’s not preaching