Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics / Edition 1

by Augusto Boal, Candida Blaker, Adrian Jackson

Overview

Hamlet and the Baker's Son is the autobiography of Augusto Boal, inventor of the internationally renowned Forum Theatre system, and 'Theatre of the Oppressed' and author of Games for Actors and Non-Actors and Legislative Theatre. Continuing to travel the world giving workshops and inspiration to teachers, prisoners, actors and care-workers, Augusto Boal is a visionary as well as a product of his times - the Brazil of military dictatorship and artistic and social repression and was once imprisoned for his subversive activities.
From his early days in Brazil's political theatre movement to his recent experiments with theatre as a democratic political process, Boal's story is a moving and memorable one. He has devised a unique way of using the stage to empower the disempowered, and taken his methods everywhere from the favelas of Rio to the rehearsal studios of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415229883
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/23/2001
Series:	Augusto Boal
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Augusto Boal

Table of Contents

The translators, Preface: a woman In the mirror, Introduction, The landscape, the family, A long time ago, I was a boy, In the arena of Arena, War declared, inside and outside of me, Exile, banishment, palm trees, birdsong, The impossible return and the strangeness of the familiar, Notes, List of illustrations

Editorial Reviews

'This readable autobiography ... is an interesting story of an extraordinary life and will no doubt inspire practitioners and students of theatre.' - Research in Drama Education

From the Publisher

Boal is the inventive stage director who owns the area of contemporary theater devoted to political activism, both as a theorist and a practitioner. Brazilian by birth and temperament, he has developed the Forum Theatre, the Legislative Theatre, the Rainbow of Desire, and other explorations of audience activity. In this autobiography, he reveals the origins and development of his vision. He does not offer a chronology of events but a narration of remembered and re-imagined encounters with people, objects, texts, ideas, theaters, places, and audiences and they all have stories. Boal remembers everything in vigorous, amused, physical terms. He is a perfect observer who sees everything as comic/sad/ridiculous/tragic all at the same time, with the notable exception of imprisonment and torture, which for him were formative life experiences. His self-deprecating style is most accessible. For him, not only is all politics local, so is all theater. All active theater collections should put this right next to his recent Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics. Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal