the misadventures of uncle mcbuck

Lobby display

2008-05-13T15:19:00.005-04:00

The concept for the display focuses on the context of the play. Out of this political turmoil Boal created Theatre of the Oppressed so I wanted to tie everything together by giving the audience a look into the reality that was the original play was critiquing.

Below is a compilation of images and video from the military coup and dictatorship of the sixties and seventies that was projected onto the wall (without sound).

On either side of the video projection were the names of individuals murdered and disappeared by the dictatorship, parts of the Institutional Act of 1968. Scattered along the walls amidst these materials were pieces of paper with protest chants written in Portuguese.

WANTED BY THE DOI-CODI

The first DOI unit started in São Paulo as a private organization called "OBAN - Bandeirant Operation" (Operação Bandeirante).
OBAN was an illegal organization created using members of the federal police, civil state polices, military state polices and select members of the armed forces. It was financed by private and corporate entities.

THE MURDER OF VLADIMIR HERZOG
June 27, 1937 —
October 25, 1975

Vlado "Vladimir" Herzog, a São Paulo television journalist, died in military custody nearly 30 years ago in what remains one of the most notorious cases of human rights abuse in Brazil.

Herzog was summoned for questioning at the DOI-CODI intelligence headquarters, on suspicion that he had Communist ties. He died following six hours of torture. The official version for his death was that he had committed suicide by hanging, after admitting to be a member of the illegal Brazilian Communist Party. The military made public a photograph that showed Herzog hanging from a belt in his cell. It was later proved to have been staged.
In October 1978 Judge Marcio Jose de Morais (SP) presided the law suit brought by Herzog’s widow. They demolished the suicide thesis and held the Federal Union responsible for Herzog’s torture and death.

Two other journalists who were arrested with him and in an adjoining prison cell, witnessed his torture. Among other forms of torture, Herzog is said to have suffered brutal beatings, various forms of electric shocks, and waterboarding (forced drowning).

Herzog was the thirty-eighth person to "commit suicide" after being arrested by the military.

1. wikipedia
2. brazilianmusic.com
3. NY Times

DESAPARECIDOS
(DISAPPEARED)

Adriano Fonseca Fernandes Filho
Aluísio Palhano Pedreira Ferreira
Ana Rosa Kucinski Silva
André Grabois
Antônio “Alfaiate”
Antônio Alfredo Campos
Antônio Carlos Monteiro Teixeira
Antônio de Pádua Costa
Antônio dos Três Reis Oliveira
Antônio Guilherme Ribeiro Ribas
Antônio Joaquim Machado
Antônio Teodoro de Castro
Arildo Valadão
Armando Teixeira Frutuoso
Áurea Eliza Pereira Valadão
Aylton Adalberto Soares de Freitas
Celso Gilberto de Oliveira
Cilon da Cunha Brun
Ciro Flávio Salasar Oliveira
Custódio Saraiva Neto
Daniel Ribeiro Callado
David Capistrano da Costa
Dênis Casemiro
Dermeval da Silva Pereira
Dinaelza Soares Santana Coqueiro
Dinalva Oliveira Teixeira
Divino Ferreira de Souza
Durvalino de Souza
Edgard Aquino Duarte
Edmur Péricles Camargo
Eduardo Collier Filho
Elmo Corrêa
Elson Costa
Enrique Ernesto Ruggia
Ezequias Bezerra da Rocha
Fpelix Escobar Sobrinho
Fernando Augusto Santa Cruz Oliveira
Francisco Manoel Chaves
Gilberto Olímpio Maria
Guilherme Gomes Lund
Heleni Telles Ferreira Guariba
Helenira Rezende de Souza Nazareth
Hélio Luiz Navarro de Magalhães
Hiram de Lima Pereira
Honestino Monteiro Guimarães
Idalísio Soares Aranha Filho
Ieda Santos Delgado
Ísis Dias de Oliveira
Issami Nakamura Okano
Itair José Veloso
Ivan Mota Dias
Jaime Amorim Miranda
Jaime Petit da Silva
Jana Moroni Barroso
João Alfredo Dias
João Batista Rita
João Carlos Haas Sobrinho
João Gualberto
João Leonardo da Silva Rocha
João Massena Melo
Joaquim Pires Cerveira
Joaquinzão
Joel José de Carvalho
Joel Vasconcelos Santos
José Humberto Bronca
José Lavechia
José Lima Piauhy Dourado
José Maria Ferreira Araújo
José Maurílio Patrício
José Montenegro de Lima
José Porfírio de Souza
José Roman
José Toledo de Oliveira
José Leal Gonçalves Pereira
Jorge Oscar Adur (Padre)
Kleber Lemos da Silva
Libero Giancarlo Castiglia
Lourival de Moura Paulino
Lúcia Maria de Sousa
Lúcio Petit da Silva
Luís Almeida Araújo
Luís Eurico Tejera Lisboa
Luís Inácio Maranhão Filho
Luíza Augusta Garlippe
Luiz Renê Silveira e Silva
Luiz Viera de Almeida
Manuel José Nurchis
Márcio Beck Machado
Marco Antônio Dias Batista
Marcos José de Lima
Maria Augusta Thomaz
Maria Célia Corrêa
Maria Lúcia Petit da Silva
Mariano Joaquim da Silva
Mario Alves de Souza Vieira
Maurício Grabois
Miguel Pereira dos Santos
Nelson de Lima Piauhy Dourado
Nestor Veras
Norberto Armando Habeger
Onofre Pinto
Orlando da Silva Rosa Bonfim Júnior
Orlando Momente
Osvaldo Orlando da Costa
Paulo César Botelho Massa
Paulo Costa Ribeiro Bastos
Paulo de Tarso Celestino da Silva
Paulo Mendes Rodrigues
Paulo Roberto Pereira Marques
Paulo Stuart Wright
Pedro Alexandrino de Oliveira Filho
Pedro Carretel
Pedro Inácio de Araújo
Ramires Maranhão do Vale
Rodolfo de Carvalho Troiano
Rosalino Souza
Rubens Beirodt Paiva
Ruy Carlos Vieira Berbert
Ruy Frazão Soares
Sérgio Landulfo Furtado
Stuart Edgar Angel Jones
Suely Yumiko Kamayana
Telma Regina Cordeiro Corrêa
Thomaz Antônio da Silva Meirelles Neto
Tobias Pereira Júnior
Uirassu de Assis Batista
Umberto Albuquerque Câmara Neto
Vandick Reidner Pereira Coqueiro
Virgílio Gomes da Silva
Vitorino Alves Moitinho
Walquíria Afonso Costa
Wálter de Souza Ribeiro
Wálter Ribeiro Novaes
Wilson Silva

MORTOS
(KILLED)

1964
Albertino José de Oliveira
Alfeu de Alcântara Monteiro
Ari de Oliveira Mendes Cunha
Astrogildo Pascoal Vianna
Bernardinho Saraiva
Carlos Schirmer
Dilermando Mello do Nascimento
Edu Barreto Leite
Ivan Rocha Aguiar
Jonas José Albuquerque Barros
José de Sousa
Labib Elias Abduch
Manuel Alves de Oliveira

1965
Severino Elias de Melo

1966
José Sabino
Manoel Raimundo Soares

1967
Milton Palmeira de Castro

1968
Clóvis Dias Amorim
David de Souza Meira
Edson Luiz de Lima Souto
Fernando da Silva Lembo
Jorge Aprígio de Paula
José Carlos Guimarães
Luis Paulo Cruz Nunes
Manoel Rodrigues Ferreira
Maria Ângela Ribeiro
Ornalino Cândido da Silva

1969
Antônio Henrique Pereira Neto (Padre)
Carlos Marighella
Carlos Roberto Zanirato
Chael Charles Schreier
Eremias Delizoikov
Fernando Borges de Paula Ferreira
Hamilton Fernando Cunha
João Domingos da Silva
João Lucas Alves
João Roberto Borges de Souza
José Wilson Lessa Sabag
Luiz Fogaça Balboni
Marco Antônio Brás de Carvalho
Nelson José de Almeida
Reinaldo Silveira Pimenta
Roberto Cietto
Sebastião Gomes da Silva
Severino Viana Colon

1970
Aberlado Rausch Alcântara
Alceri Maria Gomes da Silva
Ângelo Cardoso da Silva
Antônio Raymundo Lucena
Ari de Abreu Lima da Rosa
Avelmar Moreira de Barros
Dorival Ferreira
Edson Neves Quaresma
Eduardo Collen Leite
Eraldo Palha Freire
Hélio Zanir Sanchotene Trindade
Joaquim Câmara Ferreira
Joelson Crispim
José Idésio Brianesi
José Roberto Spinger
Juarez Guimarães de Brito
Lucimar Brandão Guimarães
Marco Antônio da Silva Lima
Norberto Nehring
Olavo Hansen
Roberto Macarini
Yoshitame Fujimore

1971
Aderval Alves Coqueiro
Aldo de Sá Brito de Souza Neto
Amaro Luís de Carvalho
Antônio Sérgio de Matos
Carlos Eduardo Pires Fleury
Carlos Lamarca
Devanir José de Carvalho
Dimas Antônio Casemiro
Eduardo Antônio da Fonseca
Flávio de Carvalho Molina
Francisco José de Oliveira
Gerson Theodoro de Oliveira
Iara Iavelberg
Joaquim Alencar de Seixas
José Campos Barreto
José Gomes Teixeira
José Milton Barbosa
José Raimundo da Costa
José Roberto Arantes de Almeida
Luiz Antônio Santa Bárbara
Luís Eduardo da Rocha Merlino
Luís Hirata
Manoel José Mendes Nunes de Abreu
Marilene Vilas-Boas Pinto
Mário de Souza Prata
Maurício Guilherme da Silveira
Nilda Carvalho Cunha
Odijas Carvalho de Souza
Otoniel Campos Barreto
Raimundo Eduardo da Silva
Raimundo Golçalves Figueiredo
Raimundo Nonato Paz ou “Nicolau 21”
Raul Amaro Nin Ferreira

1972
Alex de Paula Xavier Pereira
Alexander José Ibsen Voeroes
Ana Maria Nacinovic Corrêa
Antônio Benetazzo
Antônio Carlos Nogueira Cabral
Antônio Marcos Pinto de Oliveira
Arno Preis
Aurora Maria Nascimento Furtado
Carlos Nicolau Danielli
Célio Augusto Valente da Fonseca
Fernado Augusto Valente da Fonseca
Frederico Eduardo Mayr
Gastone Lúcia Beltrão
Gelson Reicher
Getúlio D’Oliveira Cabral
Grenaldo de Jesus da Silva
Hélcio Pereira Fortes
Hiroaki Torigoi
Ismael Silva de Jesus
Iuri Xavier Pereira
Jeová de Assis Gomes
João Mendes Araújo
José Bartolomeu Rodrigues de Souza
João Carlos Cavalcanti Reis
José Inocêncio Pereira
José Júlio de Araújo
José Silton Pinheiro
Lauriberto José Reys
Lígia Maria Salgado Nóbrega
Lincoln Cordeiro Oest
Lourdes Maria Wanderly Pontes Luís Andrade de Sá e Benevides
Marcos Nonato da Fonseca
Maria Regina Lobo Leite Figueiredo
Míriam Lopes Verbena
Ruy Osvaldo Aguiar Pfitzenreuter
Valdir Sales Saboya
Wilton Ferreira

1973
Alexandre Vannucchi Leme
Almir Custódio de lima
Anatália de Souza Alves de Mello
Antônio Carlos Bicalho Lama
Arnaldo Cardoso Rocha
Emanoel Bezerra dos Santos
Eudaldo Gomes da Silva
Evaldo Luís Ferreira Sousa
Francisco Emanoel Penteado
Francisco Seiko Okama
Gildo Macedo Lacerda
Helber José Gomes Goulart
Henrique Ornelas Ferreira Cintra
Jarbas Pereira Marques
José Carlos Novaes da Mata Machado
José Manoel da Silva
José Mendes de Sá Roriz
Lincoln Bicalho Roque
Luis Guilhardini
Luís José da Cunha
Manoel Aleixo da Silva
Manoel Lisboa de Moura
Merival Araújo
Pauline Philipe Reichstul
Ranúsia Alves Rodrigues
Ronaldo Mouth Queiroz
Soledad Barret Viedma
Sônia Maria Lopes Morais

1975
José Ferreira de Alemeida
Pedro Gerônimo de Souza
Wladimir Herzog

1976
Ângelo Arroyo
João Baptista Franco Drummond
João Fosco Penito Burnier (Padre)
Manoel Fiel Filho
Pedro Ventura Felipe de Araújo Pomar

1977
José Soares dos Santos

1979
Alberi Vieira dos Santos
Benedito Gonçalves
Guido Leão
Otacílio Martins Gonçalves
Santo Dias da Silva

1980
Lyda Monteiro da Silva
Raimundo Ferreira Lima
Wilson Souza Pinheiro

1983
Margarida Maria Alves

(acervoditadura.rs.gov.br)

Institutional Act No. 5

December 13, 1968

The President may call the National Congress into recess for unlimited amounts of time.

In the interest of National Security, the President may intervene in State and Municipal governments, regardless of the limitations placed on this type of action in the Constitution.

Control of the Supreme Courts is given to the President, may also remove judges at will.

The President will hereby be permitted to rule by way of decrees.

The political rights of the Citizens are hereby suspended, including, but not limited to, the right to protest, the right to meet peacefully, and the right to vote.
Institutional Act No. 5

The President may review and censor any materials which may contain political messages against the Republic.

The right of habeas corpus is hereby suspended in cases involving political crimes or any crimes committed against the national security, the economy, or society as a whole.

Tortura Nunca Mais
O Povo Unido Jamais Sera Vencido
Contra A Repressão
Abaixo A Ditadura

Program notes!

2008-02-17T21:00:00.019-05:00

Show opens this week! These are my dramaturgical notes.

It’s no surprise that Augusto Boal was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. Fifty years ago the interactive and pragmatic creation known as Theatre of the Oppressed that hatched in São Paulo, Brazil, exists today in the streets, schools, hospitals, and courthouses of 70 countries, utilized by artists, social workers, teachers, psychologists, and politicians.

In the 1950s, European theatre was the accepted model for theatre in Brazil and other underdeveloped countries. Culture was borrowed from the “great centers” and placed on stage by and for the entertainment of the wealthy. To the admonition of Brazil’s working class, such a convention served only to further internalize an imperialist legacy. Boal describes in Theatre of the Oppressed: “[The artist] receives a culture as if it were the divine word, without saying a single word of his own.” In 1956, at a tremulous moment in Brazil’s history, Boal’s Arena Theatre embarked on the mission to provide São Paulo’s public with local and relevant socio-democratic theatre.

Into the 1960s the military grew nervous. Discontent with the president’s populist reforms and afraid of further organization of the working class, a violent military coup d'etat occurred first in 1964, and again in 1968. Upon seizing control of the government, an era marked by censorship, military control of schools, political imprisonment, and torture began and lasted for over two decades. Boal and many other prominent social critics and artists were specific targets of the new regime and in 1971, while leaving the Arena after a performance, Boal was kidnapped, jailed, and tortured for three months. Upon release he exiled in Argentina and Europe until 1976. Under these conditions, TO developed further.

TO’s vast collection of games and techniques, which Boal calls “weapons of liberation,” began with the “Joker.” A system that protested the conventional structure of theatre by creating levels of fact and fiction, and being completely honest about it. Conventional theatre is a monologue. Within the mini world of a play, the Protagonist deceptively persuades the spectator how to think and act while disallowing her or him to judge the validity of the prescribed path. Conversely, the Joker is a neutral exegete, and as Boal states, “a contemporary and neighbor of the spectator.” Could there could be any other form for McBuck’s Joker than Mr. Rogers?

The three main forms of TO: image, forum and invisible theatre, emerged while Boal was in exile. Assisting a national literacy campaign in Peru, Boal designed a technique to transcend spoken language. Image theatre allows the expression of opinion through the body only. Participants sculpt an oppressive image, an ideal image, and then work to find the transitional image.

Boal describes forum theatre as a “collective rehearsal for reality” where actors present a social problem on stage, such as domestic abuse or police brutality, and ask the spectators whether they agree with the solution. Performed again, the spectator is asked to step on stage and assume the role of actor in order to test a different idea, and thus becomes the “spect-actor.” More participants become involved as the entire auditorium rehearses the ideal solution. The forum not only presents possibilities, but creates a practice space that enables participants to recognize oppression and how to fight it. As Boal states, “It is not the place of the theater to show the correct path, but only to offer the means by which all possible paths may be examined.”

Back in Argentina, invisible theatre became the only means of safely* continuing activist theatre under the regime. By performing theatre in a public space such as the market, town square, or subway, bystanders are drawn to participate, never knowing they are involved in a piece of theatre. One of Boal’s invisible theatre pieces that took place in a restaurant, involved an actor who couldn’t pay for dinner and offers to pay in labor. Actors situated throughout the restaurant intervene and create discussion among other customers who respond as though it were a real-life situation—which Boal argues, it is.

When Tio Patinhas was written in Brazil in 1968, Scrooge McDuck represented imperialism and corruption. In a letter written in 1970, Boal likens the greedy McDuck to Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. Forty years later, the issues presented in McBuck are still relevant, even in the wealthy country of the United States. The former Secretary of Defense of today’s administration assumed accountability for an abuse scandal and an Attorney General evaded defining waterboarding as torture. As we enter the fifth year of the Iraq War, violations of civil liberties continue to be muffled by the mantra of “justice (by whatever means necessary).” This play shows not only the state of reality, but shows how it can be changed. Boal believes theatre is language, not discourse, and theatre is also moral.

*If I could edit this now, I would say that invisible theatre was by no means a "safe" solution. Invisible theatre created many new possibilities, but it was still dangerous.
1. President Vargas avenue during the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état on March 31, 1964. Brazilian National Archive.

2. An Image Theatre piece, created by Douglas Paterson and Festival participants, is rehearsed before a march downtown to enact the impoverished lives and killing of street children. Image Theatre became a mechanism for participants to filter their angry responses. A Role to Play for the Theatre of the Oppressed. Douglas L. Paterson. TDR (1988-), Vol. 38, No. 3. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 37-49.

THEATRE AGAINST TORTURE

2008-02-16T17:59:00.006-05:00

Witness Against Torture Street Theatre

Times Square - May 19, 2007

From Theatre Against Torture Guantanamo Working Group, New York City. This text describes a piece of public theatre that seeks to dramatize the horrors of U.S. detention policies in the “war on terror” and the particular shame of Guantanamo. The performance, which may be conducted indoors or outdoors, requires 7 participants and some props. It lasts 8-10 minutes.

Below it is described as it was performed three times in Times Square in New York City on May 19, 2007, across from the famous U.S. Army recruiting center. Your group may naturally perform it with whatever variations, amendments, deletions, or additions you feel make the piece stronger or are best suited to your purposes. Some performance notes and comments on props, costumes, etc., follow the run-through of the piece.

Read scenario here.

The Torture Post, part 3

2008-02-15T06:01:00.009-05:00

I have listed here some more information on scandals and investigations regarding the US's integrity during the War in Iraq. My intention with this information is to highlight the parallels of between the violent regime of the 60s and 70s in Brazil, the location and era in which Tio Patinhas was written, and the War in Iraq. Forty years later and we're still fighting for human rights. Forty years later in another country and language, this play is still relevant.

Abu Graib Abuse Scandel

The human rights scandal now known as "Abu Ghraib" began its journey toward exposure on Jan. 13, 2004, when Spc. Joseph Darby handed over horrific images of detainee abuse to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID). The next day, the Army launched a criminal investigation. Three and a half months later, CBS News and the New Yorker published photos and stories that introduced the world to devastating scenes of torture and suffering inside the decrepit prison in Iraq.

In the fall of 2003, the military police at Abu Ghraib systematically abused detainees using interrogation techniques similar to those once approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- forced nudity, stress positions, hooding and sleep deprivation, to name a few. Rumsfeld had approved harsh interrogation methods on Dec. 2, 2002, in a then classified memo for interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The memo was leaked to the media and eventually released by the White House in June 2004, sparking heated debate, domestically and internationally, about whether these tougher U.S. interrogation policies amounted to approval of torture and violation of international law.

salon.com

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated, after numerous requests for his resignation: "These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility."

CIA Torture Tapes

The CIA withheld at least 2 tapes from the 9/11 Commission, depicting the use of severe [illegal] interrogation techniques taking place in 2002. It was revealed in December, 2007 that they were destroyed in 2005. Why? They're looking into it. Here's a list of interrogation techniques [torture methods] used in 2002.

Guantánamo Prison Illegal

2190 = number of days that the longest held detainees have been at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial as of January 11, 2008

AI Guantánamo Fact Sheet

Almost six years after the first people were transferred to Guantanamo, only one person has ever been convicted of any crime by a highly questionable plea deal, and only two others have even been charged. The vast majority of the approximately 340 others are being held indefinitely in conditions that amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

AI Issue Brief (pdf)

Detainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay. © AFP/US NAVY

Useful links:
Amnesty USA on Torture
AI Denounce Torture Blog
AI Counter Terror with Justice

Monumento Tortura Nunca Mais
"Torture Never Again" Monument depicting a prisoner suspended from the parrot's perch. Erected in 1993 in Recife, Brazil.

The Torture Post, part 2

2008-02-13T17:40:00.008-05:00

In the next two posts, I aim to give background on the role torture is playing in our government and the War in Iraq to better contextualize the references in the script.

From an interview with author of American Torture, Michael Otterman:

Shows like "24" depict torture in an incredibly positive light...capturing someone right after they planted a bomb but right before it goes off, and you know you have the right guy and you know everything else, but he's not saying where the bomb is and only torture could work to get this information - again, it makes for dramatic TV.

I've been studying this issue. I've never seen a real-world example of this quote, unquote "ticking time-bomb."

A fact I cite in the book is in 2005, a poll showed 60 percent of Americans supported the use of torture to save U.S. lives.

But when you ask that question, you have to realize even just the phrasing itself - to save lives. Because when you look at the long history of torture, like I said, it's counterproductive...you're destroying a person. I spent time with torture victims. This isn't something that anyone easily recovers from.

"Torture Doesn't Work"

..About one month before the Abu Ghraib images leaked...The poll showed that about 63 percent of Iraqis supported the U.S. mission in Iraq. One month after, the poll was taken again, after these images were splashed around the world...that number dropped from 63 percent down to nine percent. So that shows the wider effects of the use of torture. It turns people against you. And the more immediate torture situation, well, it's quite simple - under torture, under severe pain, people are willing to say anything to stop the sensation of the pain. And again, there are real-world examples to back that up.
..The CIA, which was authorized on September 17th, 2001, to literally kill, capture, or detain anyone they deemed al Qaeda...They requested custody of this guy Shaykh al Libbi. It was granted.
..He ended up in a CIA black site, and under the - well, various tortures. Water-boarding, which is when you lay someone down on a board, force water into their mouth; it's a form of mock execution. Long-time standing; 40 hours, reportedly. Induced hypothermia.

Under these CIA tortures, he did start to tell his interrogator certain things...And what the CIA was after at the time was any information linking al Qaeda and Saddam. And this guy was smart, he knew that, and so under these tortures he said, "Well, al Qaeda has been trained by Saddam in poisons and gases."

And sure enough, when he revealed these things, the tortures subsided. And this information was so hot, so to speak, it went straight to the White House. In late 2002, you have George Bush saying, "We now know that Saddam has trained al Qaeda in poisons and gases." Colin Powell said the same exact thing in his speech to the U.N.

..Obviously we know now that this is all false, it's made up. It was made to please his interrogators.
[emphasis mine]

Watch PBS interview or read transcript here.

Detainee Detention Act (2005) passed to retroactively OK previous used interrogation methods that could potentially violate international law. The NY Times featured an editorial on the bill's flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

NY Times

Habeas Corpus, please.
Detainees are tortured not only before they're found guilty, or before they're tried, but before they're even charged.

The Torture Post, part 1

2008-02-13T14:52:00.010-05:00

Torture is prohibited by international law, yet Amnesty International, probably the most reputable human rights organization, estimates that 75% of the world's governments practice torture.

International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions

The primary source of international humanitarian law (also called the laws of war) is the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which the United States ratified in 1955. The Third Geneva Convention concerns prisoners-of-war; the Fourth Geneva Convention safeguards so-called “protected persons,” most simply described as detained civilians. Detainees must at all times be humanely treated (Geneva III, art. 13, Geneva IV, art. 27). Detainees may be questioned, but any form of “physical or mental coercion” is prohibited (Geneva III, art. 17; Geneva IV, art. 31). Women shall be protected from rape and any form of indecent assault (Geneva IV, art. 27).

Torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners-of-war (Geneva III, arts. 17 & 87) or protected persons (Geneva IV, art. 32) are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes (Geneva III, art. 130; Geneva IV, art. 147). War crimes create an obligation on any state to prosecute the alleged perpetrators or turn them over to another state for prosecution. This obligation applies regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator, the nationality of the victim or the place where the act of torture or inhuman treatment was committed (Geneva III, art.129; Geneva IV, art. 146).

Detainees in an armed conflict or military occupation are also protected by common article 3 to the Geneva Conventions. Article 3 prohibits “[v]iolence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; …outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

hrw.org

Types of Torture

The Rack
Device that consists of an oblong rectangular, usually wooden frame, with a roller at one or both ends.. The victim's feet are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other. As the interrogation progresses, a handle and ratchet attached to the top roller are used to very gradually stepwise increase the tension on the chains, which induces excruciating pain as the victim's joints slowly dislocate. By means of pulleys and levers this latter could be rolled on its own axis, thus straining the ropes till the sufferer's joints were dislocated.

Pau-de-Arara (Portuguese, "Parrot's Perch")
Technique designed to cause severe joint and muscle pain, as well as headaches, and psychological trauma. The technique consists of a tube, bar, or pole placed over the victim's biceps and behind the knees while tying both the victim's ankles and wrists together. The entire assembly is suspended between two metal platforms forming what looks like a parrot's perch. It more recently used by the agents of the Brazilian military dictatorship against political dissidents in the 1960s and 1970s.

Pau-de-Arara depicted here in Boal's Torquemada, written while in prison in 1971.(Photo courtesy of Augusto Boal). The Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses, Augusto Boal; Susana Epstein TDR (1988-), Vol. 34, No. 3. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 35-42.

Dragon's Chair
Form of torture in Brazil: “He sat down in a chair known as the dragon’s chair, an extremely heavy chair, whose seat is a sheet of corrugated iron; on the back part is a protuberance where one of the wires on the shock machine can be inserted; that, in addition to this, the chair had a wooden bar that pushed your legs backwards, so that with each spasm produced by the electrical discharge, your legs would hit against the wooden bar causing deep gashes.”

Waterboarding
Consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent.

Electric shock
Electric shocks have been used as a method of torture, since the received voltage and amperage can be controlled with precision and used to cause pain while avoiding obvious evidence on the victim's body. Such torture usually uses electrodes attached to parts of the victim's body. Electric shock delivered by an electric chair is sometimes used as a means of capital punishment.

Psychotropic Injection
Medical torture uses psychotropic and/or other chemicals to induce pain and cause compliance with the torturer's goals. May include the forced ingestion or injection of psychotropic drugs to produce the agonizing condition called akathisia (unpleasant sensations of "inner" restlessness that manifests itself with an inability to sit still or remain motionless...Akathisia makes some patients act out in violent fits of rage throwing and breaking things or harming others.)

O povo unido jamais sera vencido

2008-02-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

"The people united, will never be defeated"

The term povo (people), which had meant the lowest class, the destitute, the squatters, the rural poor, had changed by the early 1950s to mean the politically active and economically mobile urban lower classes. Further, politicians appealed to the povo during election campaigns but once elected directed government benefits principally to the middle and upper classes.

..The populist administrations of Jânio Quadros (January-August 1961) and João Goulart (1961-64) expanded the term povo once again to embrace the rural poor, thereby producing the image of a budding proletariat ready to join a reformist government against elite privilege and United States imperialism.

Library of Congress

Slowly I Turned

2008-02-07T00:34:00.000-05:00

"Slowly I Turned" is an old vaudeville routine involving two characters meeting for the first time, and one becoming maniacal every time a certain phrase is uttered. In the Three Stooges sketch from the short Gents Without Cents, the phrase is "Niagara Falls." Abbott & Costello did a similar sketch called Poko Moko. In the I Love Lucy sketch, the character's trigger is his ex-wife's name, Martha.

Three Stooges

I Love Lucy

Blackwater and private militaries

2008-01-31T16:19:00.000-05:00

Blackwater Worldwide, formerly Blackwater USA, is a self-described private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. Blackwater is based in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where it operates a tactical training facility that it claims is the world's largest. [source]

The Iraq War..

Breaking out of the "guns for hire" mold of traditional mercenaries, corporations like Blackwater sell the sorts of services that soldiers used to provide. Known as "private military firms" (PMFs), they range from small companies that provide teams of commandos for hire to large corporations that run military supply chains. This new military industry encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of revenue dollars.

...An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 private military personnel are in Iraq. They are carrying out essential jobs that soldiers have done in the past -- from handling logistics and maintenance to training the local army to fighting pitched battles -- and they have taken more casualties than any ally.

...The size and scope of the private military contingent in Iraq also cut to the heart of the most troubling questions about the Bush administration's handling of the war. They point up the administration's inadequate planning and preparation, its lack of transparency about the war's financial and human cost, and its sense of denial about whether it put enough American troops on the ground to accomplish the task handed to them. The hiring of such a large private force and the ensuing casualties that it has taken outside of public awareness and discussion have served as a novel means for displacing some of the political costs of the war. Even more troubling, the growth of such an ad hoc market arrangement, lying outside the chain of command, makes an already tough mission even more difficult, and risks lives on both the troop and contractor side. [source]

In the news..

BAGHDAD, Tuesday, Sept. 18 —

Blackwater USA, an American contractor that provides security to some of the top American officials in Iraq, has been banned from working in the country by the Iraqi government after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead and involved an American diplomatic convoy.

The deaths struck a nerve with Iraqis, who say that private security firms are often quick to shoot and are rarely held responsible for their actions. A law issued by the American authority in Iraq before the United States handed over sovereignty to Iraqis, Order No. 17, gives the companies immunity from Iraqi law. A security expert based in Baghdad said Monday night that the order, issued in 2004, had never been overturned. Like others, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains under official inquiry. [source]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

Investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense and that three company vehicles were damaged by gunfire. [source]

Act II Script Guide

2008-01-30T17:59:00.000-05:00

THE MISADVENTURES OF UNCLE McBUCK
ACT II

p38 Waiting for Godot is a play written by Samuel Beckett between the years 1948 and 1949. Considered one of the most influential plays of the 20th century. The story is about two characters waiting for Godot, who never arrives. Beckett was a key writer of Theatre of the Absurd. [source]

Two Men Contemplating the Moon (Friedrich, 1819) may have been inspiration to Beckett.

p39 Dubya the Decider: George W. Bush is quoted saying “I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense” in response to calls for the resignation of Rumsfeld by six retired military generals.

p39 She-ra, twin sister of He-Man, is the heroic female lead in the series She-Ra: Princess of Power.

p39 Condoleezza Rice is the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush to hold the office. Rice is the first black woman, second African American (after Colin Powell), and second woman (after Madeleine Albright) to serve as Secretary of State. [source]

p39 "Inside Looking Out" is the Mad TV Interracial Couple who sing and preach against bigotry, despite the fact that Pat-Beth, unintentionally, is racist. They seem to love each other very deeply despite Pat-Beth's racist comments. [source]
Watch clip here.

Dontell: Pat-Beth and I created this show as a guide for all you interracial couples out there.
Pat-Beth: Yes, it is based on a course that we teach together at DeVry University.
Dontell: We want the world to realize that the color of skin does not matter, whether it’s black—
Pat-Beth: Or normal.

p39 Cleopatra Jones: action-adventure Blaxploitation movie starring Tamara Dobson as Cleopatra, which was released in 1973. In the film, Jones is a special agent assigned to eliminate drug-trafficking in the US and abroad. [source]

p43 Magnum, PI: American television show that followed the adventures of Thomas Magnum (played by Tom Selleck), a private investigator living in Hawaii. The show aired from 1980 to 1988.

p44 Tomahawk missle:

p44 Bunker buster: bomb designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground.

p44 Napalm: the name given to any of a number of flammable liquids used in warfare, often jellied gasoline. Napalm is actually the thickener in such liquids, which when mixed with gasoline makes a sticky incendiary gel. Developed by the U.S. in World War II by a team of Harvard chemists led by Louis Fieser, its name is a combination of the names of its original ingredients, coprecipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids. These were added to the flammable substance to cause it to gel.

The substance is formulated to burn at a specific rate and adhere to materials. Napalm "rapidly deoxygenates the available air" as well as creating large amounts of carbon monoxide causing suffocation. Napalm bombs were also used in the Vietnam War to clear landing zones for helicopters. [source]

p44 B-52 Stratofortress:

p45 A few more Bush's rhetoric war slogans:
“Compassionate conservative”
“Liberty’s century”
“Support our troops”
"Stay the Course" or... "The New Way Forward"?
"Better Dead than Red" [just kidding.. Cold War joke..]

p46 Operation: Zero-Tolerance: fictional event occurring in the Marvel Comic Universe.
Following the Onslaught Saga, a growth of mistrust between the mutant and human communities rose quickly. What tipped the scale of mistrust over was the assassination of Graydon Creed, a candidate for the presidential election (also an mutant-hater), by what was supposedly an energy blast. As a result, the U.S. government gave full permission to Bastion [a Marvel supervillain] and his Sentinels [evil robots] to exterminate the mutants as a campaign. The Sentinels were able to seize control on some of the X-Men as well as the Xavier Institute For Higher Learning [training school and headquarters of the X-men]. [source] Over the course of the story, Jubilee was captured and mentally abused in order to access the secrets she knew. Cyclops had a bomb implanted in his chest after being captured by Operation: Zero Tolerance along with Jean Grey, Storm, Wolverine and Cannonball while returning from Japan. [source]

p47 Mark Bent:

p48 Richard Simmons:
Fitness expert who promotes weight-loss programs, most famously through a line of aerobics videos and television programs. [source]

p49 Molotov cocktail: generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons, frequently used by rioters. The bombs were derisively named after Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, by the Finnish people during the Winter War.

A Molotov cocktail is a glass bottle containing gasoline fuel with a fuse consisting of a fuel soaked rag (or other extremely flammable material) held in place by the bottle's stopper. When the bottle smashes on impact, the ensuing cloud of gasoline droplets and vapor is ignited by the fuse causing an immediate fireball followed by a raging fire as the remainder of the fuel is consumed. [source]

p52 Erwin Piscator was the foremost exponent of epic theater [the audience should always be aware that it is watching a play, and should remain at an emotional distance from the action], a genre that emphasizes the sociopolitical context rather than the emotional content or aesthetics of the play. Piscator's theater techniques of the 1920s such as the extensive use of picture and film projections from 1925 on as well as complex scaffold stages had an extensive influence on European and American production methods. [source]

p52 “Hi-yo, Silver, away!” The Lone Ranger is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic American Indian sidekick called Tonto, and his horse Silver. He would famously say "Hi-yo Silver, away!" to get the horse to gallop. [source]

p56 Walter Reed: Walter Reed Army Medical Center provides medical treatment for soldiers, military retirees, and their families.

p56 “His Eyes is on the Sparrow”: famous gospel hymn. See lyrics. Watch Sister Act II:

p58 Senator Larry Craig: Republican senator of Idaho arrested “in June in a Minneapolis airport men's room, where the police had been watching for homosexual activity. The police said Mr. Craig had used foot-tapping to signal his interest in lewd activity, touched the foot of an officer in adjoining stall with his own and reached under the barrier between the stalls” [source]

p59 Cloaca: the posterior opening that serves as the only such opening for the intestinal, urinary, and (usually) genital tracts of certain animal species. The word comes from Latin, and means "sewer." Birds also have sex with this organ, this is known as a "cloacal kiss." Click for pronunciation.

p59 TR Knight: Dr. George O'Malley on ABC's Grey's Anatomy.

p61 Lilliputians: Citizens of the fictional island nation Lilliput portrayed as being 6 inches high in the novel Gulliver’s Travels written by Jonathan Swift in 1726.

p61 King Midas: Story from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which Bacchus [Dionysus] grants Midas, King of Lydia, the ability to turn anything he touched into gold after caring for the satyr Silenus. Midas soon forsook his gift upon realizing he couldn't eat or drink anything and was told to dive into the river. His touch washed away and turned the sand to gold. [source]

p62 Green Zone: The International Zone (formerly known as the Green Zone) is the heavily guarded diplomatic/government area of closed-off streets in central Baghdad where US occupation authorities live and work. The Green Zone in the central city includes the main palaces of former President Saddam Hussein. The area houses the civilian ruling authority run by the Americans and British and the offices of major US consulting companies. [source]

p62 Viagra de Spell: Magica De Spell is the witch from the Scrooge McDuck universe. She constantly steals or attempts to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime, which she believes will play a vital role in magically obtaining the same fabulous wealth of its owner. [source]

ACT I Script Guide

2008-01-28T01:35:00.000-05:00

THE MISADVENTURES OF UNCLE McBUCK
ACT I

p2 Viewmaster

p2 McBuck’s Money Bin

p2 Number One Dime - The first coin that McBuck ever earned. According to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa, Scrooge earned the dime in 1877 in his hometown of Glasgow, when he started working as a shoeshine boy on his tenth birthday. It has been established by Rosa to be an 1875 Seated Liberty dime. [source]

p3 Rupert Murdoch – Media tycoon. Launched Fox News Channel in 1996. In the US he has been a long-time supporter of the Republican Party. Murdoch's publications worldwide tend to adopt conservative views [source]. The documentary Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know [source].

p6 Sugarloaf Mountain - A peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

p6 Christ the Redeemer Statue - Statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

p6 Machu Picchu - Pre-Colombian Inca site located in Peru. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Machu Picchu was built in a classic Inca architectural style of polished dry-stone walls.

p6 Tigre River - Tributary of the Amazon River, forming in Peru.

p6 Viña del Mar - Spanish: Vineyard by the Sea, is a Chilean commune and coastal city.

p6 Punta del Este - Upscale vacation spot on the southern tip of Uruguay.

p8 Alfred E. Newman

p8 Her Majesty, the Queen’s Army – Army of the United Kingdom

p9 Beaner - Derogatory term for a person of Mexican descent.

p9 Towelhead - Derogatory term for person of Arabic descent.

p9 Geisha - (gā-shə) a Japanese girl or woman who is trained to provide entertaining and lighthearted company especially for a man or a group of men.

p9 “My eagle carries deadly arrows in one talon, and an olive branch in the other” - The Presidential Seal, has a shield bearing bald eagle clutching olive branches in its right talons and arrows in its left. The branch symbolizing peace and the arrows symbolizing war.

p12 Creature from the Black Lagoon – 1954 black-and-white science fiction film. Three scientists and a girlfriend (of course) venture to the Amazon for an excavation of the Black Lagoon where they encounter Gill-man.

p12 Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1956 science fiction film. A local doctor, who finds a rash of patients accusing their loved ones of being impostors, soon discovers that the townspeople are in fact being replaced by simulations grown from plantlike pods; perfect physical duplicates who kill and dispose of their human victims. The Pod People are indistinguishable from normal people, except for their utter lack of emotion.

p13 Siesta – (Spanish) afternoon nap.

p16 Rumsfeldore:

Donald Rumsfeld, US Republican politician serving as Secretary of Defense under both Gerald Ford and George W. Bush. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rumsfeld led the military planning and execution of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq…Rumsfeld vigorously defended the Bush administration's decision to detain alleged illegal enemy combatants without protection under the Third Geneva Convention…Critics feel that Rumsfeld should have been held personally responsible for the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. Rumsfeld himself said, “These events occurred on my watch as secretary of defense. I am accountable for them.” However, military investigations into the matters did not find him responsible for any wrongdoing. Rumsfeld wrote a resignation letter dated November 6, 2007. [source]

Albus Dumbledore is a fictional character within the Harry Potter series written by British author J. K. Rowling. For the majority of the series, he is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As part of his back-story, it is revealed that he is the founder and leader of the "Order of the Phoenix", an organisation dedicated to fighting the main antagonist of the series, Lord Voldemort. Rowling said that she always thought of Dumbledore as being gay. [source]

p20 Central Bank - an entity responsible for the monetary policy of its country or of a group of member states.

p21 Reais - Plural of real, Brazilian currency. Click to hear pronunciation.

p24 Bill O’Reilly - American television host, author, social commentator, and the host of the cable news program The O'Reilly Factor on the FOX News Channel. 68% of The Factor's regular viewers identify as conservative while 10% consider themselves liberal. O'Reilly is known for his confrontational interview style and strong opinions, for which the program has been both criticized and praised. The Colbert Report, hosted by Stephen Colbert, is a satirical spoof of The O'Reilly Factor, spoofing its format and the mannerisms and ideology of O'Reilly, whom Colbert calls “Papa Bear.” Colbert calls the character based on Bill O'Reilly “a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot.” [source 1, 2]

p24 Rush Limbaugh - American radio host, author, and conservative political commentator. Limbaugh has used the term “environmentalist wacko” as a reference to climate scientists and other environmental scientists and advocates.
Some representative quotes:
“We conservatives are never stronger than when we are advancing our principles.”
“Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”
“Let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do - let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.” [source]

p26 “It’s like having a policeman in your head” Cop-in-the-Head is a specific exercise amongst Boal's therapeutic techniques. It is also the term Boal originally used to designate the entire series of TO exercises that address internalized oppressions. Boal believes that all the cops in our heads have identities and headquarters in the external world that need to be located. He sees this work as bordering on psychology but still firmly rooted in the realm of theater.

There are many people who dare not participate in a strike or other political actions.
Why? Because they have cops in their heads. They have internalized their oppressions.
Augusto Boal, “The Cop in the Head: Three Hypotheses” (1990)

p27 Rambo - series of popular action films. In popular culture, the name has become an eponym for a tactic of military aggression or, alternatively, a person demonstrating heroism through extreme violence, especially when outnumbered. However, the term can also be used somewhat derogatorily to describe someone who thoughtlessly charges into a fight with no regard for personal safety or careful planning. This term is commonly referred to as “Going Rambo.” [source]

p27 Stephen Colbert - American comedian, satirist, actor, and writer known for his ironic style, particularly in his portrayal of uninformed opinion leaders and deadpan comedic delivery. The Colbert Report focuses on a fictional anchorman character played by Colbert. The character, a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot", is a caricature of televised political pundits. [source 1, 2] See also: CR Videos.

p28 Gloria Gaynor – Singer of “I Will Survive” and other disco hits of the late 70s.

p29 Cataclysm - A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change.

p29 Hecatomb - A sacrifice to the ancient Greek and Roman gods consisting originally of 100 oxen or cattle.

p29 Patrón - (Spanish) slang for boss.

p31 Telex roll – Message received from a telephone exchange (a switchboard)

p31 McHalliburton – Halliburton Energy Services is a United States-based multinational corporation with operations in more than 120 countries.

From Salon.com’s “Scandal Sheet”
(For an alternative viewpoint, visit http://www.halliburton.com.)

Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.
The problem: The Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to the deal, saying the contract should be the standard one-year length, and that a Halliburton official should not have been present during the discussions.
The outcome: The FBI is investigating. The $7 billion contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the parts in a public bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse has been forced into whistle-blower protection.

Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.
The problem: That's not the government's $61 million, it's our $61 million.
The outcome: The FBI is investigating.
Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.
The problem: That's not the government's $1.8 billion, it's our $1.8 billion.
The outcome: The Defense Contract Audit Agency has "strongly" asked the Army to withhold about $60 million a month from its Halliburton payments until the documentation is provided.

The Halliburton Bribe-apalooza
The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.)
The problem: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.
The outcome: A veritable coalition of the willing is investigating the deal, including the Justice Department, the SEC, the Nigerian government and a French magistrate. In June, Halliburton fired two implicated executives.

Halliburton: One Fine Company
The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.
The problem: Doing so made the company's income appear larger, but Halliburton did not explain this to investors. The SEC ruled this accounting practice was "materially misleading."
The outcome: In August 2004, Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle SEC charges. One Halliburton executive has paid a fine and another is settling civil charges. Now imagine the right-wing rhetoric if, say, Al Gore had once headed a firm fined for fudging income statements.

Halliburton's Iran End Run
The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.
The problem: Federal sanctions have banned U.S. companies from dealing directly with Iran. To operate in Iran legally, U.S. companies have been required to set up independent subsidiaries registered abroad. Halliburton thus set up a new entity, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., to do business in Iran, but while the subsidiary was registered in the Cayman Islands, it may not have had operations totally independent of the parent company.
The outcome: Unresolved. The Treasury Department has referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Houston, who convened a grand jury in July 2004.
[source]

p31 Germ warfare – AKA biological warfare, the use of any pathogen (bacterium, virus or other disease-causing organism) as a weapon of war.

p31 Cold warfare – a condition of rivalry, mistrust, and often open hostility short of violence especially between power groups (as labor and management)

p31 Hot warfare - a conflict involving actual fighting.

p31 Search and Destroy - Refers to a military strategy that became a notorious component of the Vietnam War. Offensive operations designed to find and destroy enemy forces rather than establish permanent government control. [source] The Mai Lai Massacre: “As the ‘search and destroy’ mission unfolded, it soon degenerated into the massacre of over 300 apparently unarmed civilians including women, children, and the elderly.” [source]

p31 Counter-insurgency - type of military campaign used in an occupation or a civil war to quell rebellion. Counter-insurgency is usually conducted in conjunction with conventional military operations, propaganda, and psychological operations. The term was used by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and since late 2004 has been used by them to describe ongoing operations in Iraq. [source]

p32 Bruce Plain & Dick Gayson - Dick Grayson (the first Robin, Boy Wonder) is Bruce Wayne’s (Batman) ward and later adopted son.

p33 Savoir-faire – (French) The ability to do or say what is appropriate for the occasion.

p33 Clarion call – A clarion is a medieval trumpet with a shrill sound. Clarion call in this context refers to a rooster’s crow at dawn.

p33 Samuel Beckett – One of the key playwrights of Theatre of the Absurd. Most notably wrote Waiting for Godot.

p33 The Poker – Batman’s archenemy is the Joker.

p34 Bourgeoisie - Middle class; also plural in construction : members of the middle class. Click for pronunciation.

p35 Blue-collar – Denotes of working class

p35 Proletariat - The working class as a lower social class, defined by Karl Marx.

p35 Justice (by whatever means necessary) League – The Justice League is a DC Comics Superhero team featuring Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter.

p36 Abbott and Costello – American comedy duo with the famous routine, “Who’s on First?” The premise of the routine is that Abbott is identifying the players on a baseball team to Costello. In this context, the first baseman is named “Who”; thus, the utterance “Who's on first?” is ambiguous between the question (“which person is the first baseman?”) and the answer (“Mr. Who is the name of the first baseman.”) [source]

Foreign phrases

2008-01-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

Here are some sound files to download and listen to for pronunciation. There's a prompter on some (just ignore it). Also, the Portuguese and Spanish phrases are on one file. Thanks so Jan & Vivi for recording these. Enjoy..

p5 - Tabula rasa (Latin) = the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions.

p5 - Enfant terrible (French) = a child whose inopportune remarks cause embarrassment.

p5 - Raisondetre (French) = reason or justification for existence.

p22 - O povo unido jamais sera vencido (Portuguese) = The people united, will never be defeated

p22 - Muerte a los puercos capitalistas (Spanish) ; Mort a les poulets capitalists (French) = Die capitalist pig

p59 - Faites de moi ce qui voudrez (French) = Do with me what you wish

50s cigarette commercial..

2008-01-21T01:31:00.000-05:00

There's some camp for ya.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

2008-01-20T12:16:00.001-05:00

I don't know. It just seems.. relevant.

Dialects!

2008-01-18T16:44:00.000-05:00

International Dialects of English - This might help many of you create a base dialect from which you can exaggerate to fit your needs. Amy R used this website in another show and it's super.

Notes :
- The Middle-Eastern character should probably work from the Saudi Arabia files.
- The Japanese files range from good to bad English (bad being most appropriate for us).
- The Indian characters should work from the Northern India and New Delhi files where Hindi is most extensively spoken.

Uncle McDuck

2008-01-18T16:06:00.000-05:00

McDuck and #1 Dime

DuckTales - Scrooge McDuck's temper tantrum

WC Fields

Burgess Meredith

Speedy

2008-01-18T15:47:00.000-05:00

Batman

2008-01-18T15:43:00.001-05:00

Batman cartoon 1968

Ambiguously Gay Duo

2008-01-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

On Safety

"It Takes Two To Tango"

Genre parodies

2008-01-18T00:04:00.003-05:00

Animaniacs spoof Power Rangers

The Simpsons American Idol Parody

The Good, the Boo, and the Ugly

Cultural touchstones..

2008-01-17T23:58:00.000-05:00

I missed so many! These are what I remembered..

"You've got mail"
YMCA song
Jessie's caffeine pills
"No place like home" (click click click)
Titanic (pretty much everything.. My Heart Will Go On, I'm king of the world, I'm flying!)
Jaws theme
Toonces the Driving Cat
"Gotta catch em all"
Super Mario Land & Tetris
"Not the mama"
Winnie from The Wonder Years
"Pour Some Sugar on Me"
"Let's get ready to rumble"
Macarena / electric slide / tootsie roll
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
California raisins
He Who Must Not Be Named

Genre!

2008-01-17T23:40:00.000-05:00

SCI-FI

Elements:
Theremin music
Threats against the world
Time limit
Scientists
Aliens (w/o belly button, look just like humans)
Robots
Scully/Mulder
Conspiracies
“We come in peace”

Examples:
William Shatner
Star Wars
2001

SOAP OPERA

Elements:
Love triangles
Coming back from the dead
Evil teams
Long stares
Babies in peril
Family drama
Blackmail
Amnesia
Multiple terrain city (forest, desert, ocean, etc.)

Examples:
Days of Our Lives
General Hospital
“Luke & Laura”
Parodies: Soap dish / Soap
SITCOM

Elements:
Laugh track
Token minority
Catchphrases
Crazy neighbor
Family
Well known theme songs
Sex
Jumping the shark
Celebrity guests
Hangout, i.e. restaurant, café, bar
Breaking up weddings
Disney/trip to Paris-type episode
To be continued...
Iconic episodes:
Soup Nazi & The Contest
Chuckles the Clown (MTM)
Who Shot Mr. Burns?
Lucy eating chocolate
Buffy kills Angel
Saved By the Bell caffeine pills

WESTERN
Elements:
Showdown
Tumble weed
Entrances: spurs and boots, saloon doors, dead silence
Girl on piano
Poker game
Shooting off the hat/gun out of hand
Names of horses
Trains
Brothels (hooker with a heart of gold)
Riding into the sunset
Wanted signs
White = good / black = bad

Examples:
High Noon
John Wayne
Wild Wild West (TV show)
Roy Rogers
Tombstone
“Pilgrim”

SUPER HERO

Sidekick
Origin of super powers: revenge, alien, chemical transformation, bestowed by a deity, magical object
Secret identity
Single weakness
Arch nemesis (exact opposite)

MUSICAL

Dream ballet
Dues ex machina
Quartet
Falling in love after “love balled”
Genre shifts, i.e. tango
Songs do not advance plot
Huge dance # before intermission
Reprises / finale medly
Huge costume change
Spectacle / special FX
Stereotypes

PORN

Bad acting
Cheesy FX
Pizza delivery guy and other random scenarios
Cheerleader/doctor/nurse/cop/teacher
Harsh lighting
Bow chicka bow wow
Pauses = innuendo
Porno titles, i.e. “Shaving Ryan’s Privates” or “Dumblow”

"Making thought visible"

2008-01-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

In Sweden, a young girl of 18 showed as a representation of oppression a woman lying on her back, legs apart, with a man on top of her, in the most conventional love-making position. I asked the spect-actors to make the Ideal Image. A man approached and reversed the positions: the woman on top, the man underneath. But the young woman protested and made her own image: man and woman sitting facing each other, their legs intertwined; this was her representation of two human begins, of two “subjects,” two free people, making love.

Augusto Boal, 1992

Image theatre - The participant is asked to express his opinion, but without speaking, using only the bodies of the other participants and "sculpting" with them a group of statues, in such a way that his opinions and feelings become evident.

In the first grouping, the actual image is shown, in the second the ideal image. Finally he is asked to show a transitional image, to show how it would be possible to pass from one reality to the other. ^[1]

Watch:
Artivista.org - Image Theatre
Grupo Direito de Ser na Parada Gay - Rio/2007

1. Cohen-Cruz, Jan. Schutzman, Mady. Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism. 1994

Forum Theatre

2008-01-16T16:13:00.001-05:00

Forum theatre is a collective rehearsal for reality.
Augusto Boal, Rio de Janeiro 2004

First, the participants are asked to tell a story containing a political or social problem of difficult solution. When the skit is over, the participants are asked if they agree with the solution presented. At least some will say no. At this point it will be explained that the scene will be performed once more, exactly as it was the first time. But now any participant in the audience has the right to replace any actor and lead the action in the direction that seems to him most appropriate...The other actors have to face the newly created solution, responding instantly to all the possibilities that it may present.

Anyone may propose a solution, but it must be done on the stage, working, acting, doing things, and not from the comfort of his seat. Often a person is very revolutionary when in a public forum he envisages and advocates revolutionary and heroic acts; on the other hand, he often realizes that things are not so easy when he himself has to practice what he suggests.

Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. 1985

Examples of FT:

Argoncilhe, Portugal

Nemashim: Arab-Jewish Theatre in Haifa, Israel

Improv Everywhere

2008-01-15T14:09:00.000-05:00

Amy R mentioned this invisible theatre group in rehearsal last night. Hundreds of "agents" causing scenes in public places all over NYC.

111 Shirtless Men in Abercombie & Fitch:

The Amazing Hypnotist (pretty amazing reaction once they leave the scene...)

Brilliance. But is this Boalian invisible theatre? Boal's invisible theatre should initiate the crowd to engage in dialog on a pertinent social issue, but it's hard to say what ensues after an IE mission. So that part could be debatable. But this isn't the Whopper Freakout prank, there's plenty of commentary. The group goal is to create chaos (and joy) which, in the harmless Harold-&-Maude-stealing-your-car sense, I consider to be conscious-raising. Not to mention 100+ shirtless men in Abercrombie says a lot about advertising...

Invisible Theatre Script

2008-01-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

Boal, 1978:

I began doing "invisible theatre" in Argentina in 1971. And until today, after so many years and all the countries I've been to, I have never participated in such a rich experience as the one in Liege, Belgium, in October 1978… It took place in the following way:

1st action: About a dozen actors go into a supermarket and start buying things.
2nd action: Francois, the protagonist, gets in line with his shopping cart. He has bread, milk, margarine, and eggs. Nothing extra, only indispensable items. Nine other actors get in the neighboring lines waiting for their turn to get to the cash register.
3rd action: Francois gets to the cash register. Before the cashier starts checking the prices out, Francois warns her that he needs everything he's got in his cart but that he doesn't have enough money to pay for it. He explains that he is unemployed and that he has spent several hours trying to get a job, but since there are approximately 600,000 unemployed people in Belgium it is very difficult to find one. The cashier says that his story is none of her business and that her job is to charge for the merchandise that people buy. Francois insists that he would like to pay. He adds that after all he could have tried to steal what he's got in his cart but he would rather pay...
“How come? You've just said you don't have the money.”
“Let's do it this way: you tell me how much what I have in my cart costs and I’ll work in this supermarket as many hours as necessary to pay for the whole thing. It's simple: I offer to pay with work instead of money...”
The cashier, becoming angry, explains that she cannot exchange goods for labor. She can only accept the ordinary way of buying and paying.
4th action: Participation of the other actors, each of them in her/his own role. One among them, Anne, accuses Francois of being a bum.
“Those who really want to get a job always find one...It's only those who don't want to work who can't get a job!”
“What's your job Miss?”
“ I work at home. M y husband is the manager of a corporation...”
“ Ah..."

Another actor announces that he is unemployed too and that he admires Francois' courage to admit that he has no money. He blames the Belgian economic system for the situation. Obviously it is not their fault since they are willing to work but can't get jobs. Another actor tells Francois to try and find a job in another city. At this point, a discussion about the different Belgian "nationalities" and the current economic problems takes place. (Many industries have moved to the cheaper northern part of Belgium, bringing wealth to the Flemish region while impoverishing the southern French-speaking "Walloon. ") The cashier threatens to call the manager. Another actor says that Francois is right since he doesn't want to steal, he only wants to do the same thing everybody else does but in reverse...

"You Miss, for instance, what do you do? You work at this cash register 8 hours a day and by the end of the week, after having worked for 40 or 45 hours, are paid. Then, with the same money, you do your own shopping in this same supermarket. It's perfect. Him, he wants to do the same thing but the other way around..."

The cashier does not know what to do and she calls the manager. By now all the customers are talking about unemployment, prices, and salaries, possible solutions, etc. In so doing, they are helped by the actors-jokers who "warm-up" the public by bringing up new subjects of discussion and posing questions to feed the debate.

5th action: Arrival of the manager who in the meantime has already called the police. The manager tries to convince Francois to leave the line. Francois continues to be extremely polite, never raising his voice while trying to sound sincere and persuasive since he is defending a valuable principle. The other customers insist that Francois be allowed to express himself. One of the actors suggests collecting money to solve Francois' problem, but acknowledges that this is not a good way to solve the problems of 600,ooo unemployed Belgians. They do very well and in only a few minutes they gather around BF 600, which is close to FF I 50. Francois pays his bill but to his surprise, the supermarket's manager and some security guards stop him from leaving. They even block him with a whole line of shopping carts. They want the police to arrive before Francois leaves the store. Francois attempts to leave one more time but he can't. At this point, all the actors, including those who, according to the script, are supposed to be against Francois, take on his defense helped by an overwhelming majority of real customers.
6th action: The police arrive. Making use of their proverbial politeness, they push around those people who bother them, maul those who are the slowest to follow their instructions, and even manage to immobilize Francois. They want to arrest him but everybody protests loudly. People are on Francois' side. The police officers cannot believe what they see.
The officer in charge asks the manager, "1s this a thief; yes or no?"
Everybody says no and offers to be a witness. The manager, getting angrier by the minute, insists that Francois be taken to the police station.
"Well, how do you want me to arrest this man when he hasn't stolen anything and when there are all these witnesses ready to declare in his favor? They are all saying that not only he hasn't taken anything but he hasn't even tried to steal a thing!"
The manager, however, is a stubborn woman:
"I want this man arrested for having caused a public disturbance!"

Her argument is that the normal functioning of her store has been hurt by this incident since she has lost time and money during the disturbance, and the incident is going to prevent many customers from coming back. The police officer in charge has few choices. Francois is taken to the police station to verify his identity and answer the accusations. Many people try to stop the police car, unsuccessfully. Anne accompanies Francois to the police station because she insists she wants to witness the interrogation…Francois finally confessed that he was just doing invisible theatre…

"What do you mean that you were just doing theatre??? You have created this major disturbance only because you were playing around? You have disturbed the public order at the supermarket where people do their shopping without problems, you have taken up everybody's time, and this was simply a show? Fine. The manager accuses you of incitement to disorder and we, the police, accuse you of having a public performance without permission from the corresponding authority!"

As artists, by abdicating our being "exceptional" and helping the oppressed spectators free themselves from at least their first oppression: that of being spectators. By becoming protagonists, they will be qualified to use the theatre of the oppressed tools in order to make it what it should be, a theatre of liberation.^[1]

1. Boal, Augusto. trans. Epstein, Susana "Invisible Theatre: Liege, Belgium, 1978" (1990).

Invisible Theatre

2008-01-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

Invisible theatre is a direct intervention in society, on a precise theme of general interest, to provoke debate and to clarify the problem that must be solved. It shall never be violent since its aim is to reveal the violence that exists in society, and not to reproduce it. Invisible theatre is a play (not a mere improvisation) that is played in a public space without informing anyone that it is a piece of theatre, previously rehearsed. Invisible theatre is the penetration of fiction into reality and of reality into fiction, which helps us to see how much fiction exists in reality, and how much reality exists in fiction.

Augusto Boal, Rio de Janeiro 2004

Invisible theatre consists of the presentation of a scene in an environment other than the theater, before people who are not spectators. The place can be a restaurant, a sidewalk, a market, a train, a line of people, etc. The people who witness the scene are those who are there by chance. During the spectacle, these people must not have the slightest idea that it is a "spectacle," for this would make them "spectators"...
t is precisely this invisible quality that will make the spectator act freely and fully, as if he were living a real situation -- and, after all, it is a real situation!

It is necessary to emphasize that the invisible theater is not the same thing as a "happening" or the so-called "guerrilla theater." In the invisible theater the theatrical rituals are abolished; only the theater exists, without its old, worn-out patterns. The theatrical energy is completely liberated, and the impact produced by this free theater is much more powerful and longer lasting.

Glossary

2008-01-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

Cop-in-the-Head is a specific exercise amongst Boal's therapeutic techniques. It is also the term Boal originally used to designate the entire series of TO exercises that address internalized oppressions. Boal explains that some people stopped themselves from taking political actions because they had "cops in their heads"—fears that persisted after the oppressor no longer had "real" power over them. Boal believes that all the cops in our heads have identities and headquarters in the external world that need to be located. He sees this work as bordering on psychology but still firmly rooted in the realm of theater.

Dynamization, a fundamental goal of TO, is the term for the activation of the spectator, whether to bring a still image to life or to intervene in a forum scene. For Boal, dynamization is also connected to catharsis—but it refers to the purging of the fear that keeps the spectator from fighting oppression rather than to the purging of the spectator's desire to act (due to vicarious identification with the actors).

Forum Theatre is a TO technique that begins with the enactment of a scene (or anti-model) in which a protagonist tries, unsuccessfully, to overcome an oppression relevant to that particular audience. The joker then invites the spectators to replace the protagonist at any point in the scene that they can imagine an alternative action that could lead to a solution. The scene is replayed numerous times with different interventions. This results in a dialogue about the oppression, an examination of alternatives, and a "rehearsal" for real situations.

Image Theatre is a series of wordless exercises in which participants create embodiments of their feelings and experiences. Beginning with a selected theme, participants "sculpt" images onto their own and others' bodies. These frozen images are then "dynamized," or brought to life, through a sequence of movement-based and interactive exercises.

Invisible Theatre is a rehearsed sequence of events that is enacted in a public, nontheatrical space, capturing the attention of people who do not know they are watching a planned performance. It is at once theater and real life, for although rehearsed, it happens in real time and space and the "actors" must take responsibility for the consequences of the "show." The goal is to bring attention to a social problem for the purpose of stimulating public dialogue.

The joker is the director/master of ceremonies of a TO workshop or performance. In Forum Theatre, the joker sets up the rules of the event for the audience, facilitates the spectators' replacement of the protagonist, and sums up the essence of each solution proposed in the interventions. The term derives from the joker (or wild card) in a deck of playing cards: just as the wild card is not tied down to a specific suit or value, neither is the TO joker tied down to an allegiance to performer, spectator, or any one interpretation of events. Also used as a verb, "to joke." The joker is related to but not the same as the "Joker System."

The Joker System is a theatrical form developed by Boal and his collaborators at the Arena Stage in São Paulo between 1968 and 1971. The genre is characterized by the mixing of fact and fiction, the shifting of roles during the play so that all actors play all characters, separation of actor and character through Brechtian techniques, and the introduction of the "joker" figure, both a narrator who addresses the audience directly and a "wild card" actor able to jump in and out of any role in the play.

Rainbow of Desire is the name of a specific TO exercise in Boal's therapeutic repertoire and, for a while, referred to his whole body of therapeutic techniques. Boal recently stated that neither Cop-in-the Head nor Rainbow of Desire was the right name for that series but he had not yet determined a name he found more suitable.

Simulatenous Dramaturgy is an early version of forum theatre in which the spectators are invited to intervene without physically entering the playing space. At the moment when the scene reaches a crisis, the spectators verbally offer alternative solutions which the actors enact on the spot. Thus, the audience members “write” and the actors perform “simultaneously.”

Spect-actor refers to the activated spectator, the audience member who takes part in the action. In TO there are meant to be no passive spectators; Boal emphasizes the potential involvement of even those who do not physically participate, and the fact that they at least have the choice.

1. Cohen-Cruz, Jan. Schutzman, Mady. Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism. 1994

Theatre of the Oppressed

2008-01-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is the over-arching title given to the ensemble of techniques and approaches to theatre pioneered by the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal. The common element of the various branches of this work is that all seek to make the power of theatre as a force for change available to everyone, particularly those in oppressed situations. The arenas of TO application range from the classroom to the council chamber, the union meeting to the therapeutic group, from the development charity to the homeless people's hostel.^[1]

Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal developed The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) during the 1950s and 1960s. In an effort to transform theater from the "monologue" of traditional performance into a "dialogue" between audience and stage, Boal experimented with many kinds of interactive theater. His explorations were based on the assumption that dialogue is the common, healthy dynamic between all humans, that all human beings desire and are capable of dialogue, and that when a dialogue becomes a monologue, oppression ensues. Theater then becomes an extraordinary tool for transforming monologue into dialogue. "While some people make theater," says Boal, "we all are theater."

From his work Boal evolved various forms of theater workshops and performances that aimed to meet the needs of all people for interaction, dialogue, critical thinking, action and fun. While the performance modes of Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, Cop-In-The-Head and the vast array of the Rainbow of Desire [see Glossary] are designed to bring the audience into active relationship with the performed event, the workshops are virtually a training ground for action not only in these performance forms, but for action in life.

The "typical" Theatre of the Oppressed workshop comprises three kinds of activity. The first is background information on TO and the various exercises provided by the workshop facilitator (or "difficultator," as Boal prefers to describe it). Such information begins the workshop, but is also interspersed throughout the games and exercises. Moreover, the group is brought together periodically to discuss responses to games and to ask questions of the various processes.

The second kind of activity is the games. These are invariably highly physical interactions designed to challenge us to truly listen to what we are hearing, feel what we are touching, and see what we are looking at. The "arsenal" of the Theatre of the Oppressed is extensive with more than 200 games and exercises listed in Boal's Games for Actors and Non-Actors alone. Several years ago Boal's Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed in Paris (CTO - Paris) proceeded methodically through all the TO activities; the inventory took two years to cover. Ultimately, these games serve to heighten our senses and demechanize the body, to get us out of habitual behavior, as a prelude to moving beyond habitual thinking and interacting. We also become actively engaged with other participants, developing relationships and trust, and having a very good time.

Finally, the third area of activity involves the structured exercises. Although there is a kind of gray area at times when one might call an activity a game or an exercise, the exercises are formulated so as to infuse a given structure with genuine content.

These activities are designed to highlight a particular area of TO practice such as Image Theatre, Forum Theatre, Rainbow of Desire, etc. Thus we are invited not only to imagine new possibilities and solutions, but to actively participate in them, Forum style. Group problem solving, highly interactive imagining, physical involvement, trust and fun combine to create vigorous interpersonal dynamics. As a result, we learn that we are, if not the source of our difficulties, at least the reason for their maintenance. More importantly, we are clearly the source of our mutual liberations.^[2]

1. "Theatre of the Oppressed," cardboardcitizens.org.uk
2. Paterson, Douglas L, "A Brief Introduction to Augusto Boal" : Webster's World of Cultural Democracy, wwcd.org

photo 1: theatreoftheoppressed.org

A brief biography of playwright Augusto Boal (1931- )

2007-12-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

Boal began developing the aesthetic philosophy that led to Theatre of the Oppressed while director of the Arena Theatre in São Paulo (1956-71). In the most innovative of arena’s stages of development, Boal and his collaborators created a new genre called the “joker system.”

Boal experienced a military coup in 1964, followed by an even more repressive one in 1968. Boal was working to foster democracy through both theatrical work and political activism, seeking socio-dramatic means of collectively surviving, perhaps even challenging, the harsh conditions under dictatorship. Boal designed a new format – forum theatre – that gave spectators themselves opportunity to discover their own solutions to their collective problems.

In 1971, having continued to work in opposition to the military regime, Boal was arrested at the Arena Theatre, and subsequently jailed and tortured. After three months he was released with the warning that if his political actions resumed he would not survive a second arrest. He moved to Argentina where he resided until 1976.

Between 1971 and 1976, Boal further developed the techniques of Theatre of the Oppressed. Invited to participate in a national literacy campaign in 1973, he developed image theatre, a technique that privileges physical expression over the spoken word. Through a series of workshop-exercises, the human body is used as an expressive tool to represent, nonverbally, a wide repertoire of feelings ideas and attitudes.

In Argentina, once again forbidden to partake in activist theatre under an increasingly repressive regime, Boal devised invisible theatre as a way to continue stimulating debate on current political issues. Staged in public spaces and masquerading as real life, actors “performed” rehearsed scenes that uncovered social injustices, drawing people’s attention and leading to impassioned discussions.

From 1976 to 1986, Boal was in exile in Europe. A series of TO workshops produced the core group of the Parisian Center for Theatre of the Oppressed (CTO). The group, still in existence, is composed of actors, social workers, activists, educators, and therapists. Finally in 1986, after a favorable change in government, Boal accepted an invitation to return to Brazil. Boal remains based in Brazil, traveling extensively to offer workshops throughout Latin America, Africa, Europe, and North America.

Excerpted from Playing Boal by Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz
Photo: Boal (Zurich 1983), "Invisible Theatre: Liege, Belgium, 1978"