Theatre Presents Free Forum Project

The UNO Theatre Program is pleased to present a university and community collaboration in Forum Theatre. Performances are FREE and will be December 2, 3, 9 and 10 at 7:30 P.M. in room 006 of the Weber Fine Arts Building on UNO’s campus..

In the 1970’s, visionary theatre director Augusto Boal brought his Theatre of the Oppressed to the world stage. Boal, and his colleague, Paulo Freire, contended that oppression could be defined as “monologue” and paths to freedom as “dialogue”. Given the binary, Boal determined that western theatre forms were essentially monologues and therefore had to be challenged as a model appropriate for oppressed populations who experienced the world as a wealth of monologues.

What was necessary, therefore, was a form of theatre that was – from start to finish – a practice of dialogue. One of those structures was Forum Theatre.

UNO theatre students – majors and non-majors – along with Omaha residents have worked for six weeks researching and assembling three scenarios for the audience’s consideration. The titles are: The Locker Room, No Humans Involved, and The Store.Each involves a clear and formidable oppression and all will be presented early in the performance. Then the audience will vote as to which one of the three should first be made into a Forum. If there is time, all three can be “forumed."

The audience is asked to talk among themselves in spontaneous small groups about what each person might propose the oppressed “protagonist” could do to bring about a better outcome. This leads to a “transgression” of the audience / stage boundary, a key element of Forum.

During the next run of the scene, audience members are asked to boldly “stop” the scene – stop the oppression! – and then to come into the playing area so as to take the place of the protagonist and show their proposal. In this way we as “spectators” are transformed into citizens who take action – “actors” – and thus “spect-actors”. The spect-actor proposes their idea in words and actions while the rest of the cast responds with various spontaneous resistances or acceptances. Gandhi didn’t exactly ask us to “become the change we want”, but that is a close rendition. Forum allows to practice being this change and to “test out” our proposal.

Perhaps surprisingly to some, the entire process can be enjoyable and even exhilarating, with moments of serious urgency as well.

Members of the group are: Fowsiya Abdullah, Cornelius Rhone, Michael AC Castillo, Matt Drushal, Emily Hill, Austin Hizer, Michael MJ Juarez, Simon Lovell, Lucas Perez-Leahy, Jeremy Plumb, Jenny Ryann, Caitlin Staebell, and Christian Velez-Lopez. The workshops were conducted by UNO theatre professor, Doug Paterson.

For more information about UNO Theatre, please contact Katie Otten at: uno.theatre.publicity@gmail.com