6-Transferring the Social Problem to the
Forum Theatre Play Format
This session focuses on finalizing the process of selecting the type of oppression that the group wants to work with, sharing more examples from reality and how a complex story of oppression could be transferred to a structure of Forum Theatre.
Because of aspects related to Forum Theatre Methodology some important points need to be mentioned at this stage for the facilitator to understand more deeply why certain parts need to be done in a certain way. Find below some of the most important guidelines for the construction of a Forum Theatre performance.
The story transferred to Forum Theatre has to be real; this is the fundamental reason why sharing concrete examples is compulsory. The team members have to share stories that they know personally, that happened to persons close to them, or maybe based on their experience working closely with such topics. If no such situation is possible then the team members have to get in touch with people that are being affected by the problem you are working with-find them, talk to them, find their stories, find similarities, research it etc. Of course some elements might get lost during transfer, some might get adjusted and adapted to the FT format BUT the true story that it is based on is reflected fully in its sense and meaning.
It is not allowed under any circumstances to invent or to make assumptions that certain situations are probably be like that or like that. We stress these aspects very much because very often the group member can fall into this trap – mostly fed by rumours, media and gossip on certain topics.
We cannot imagine an oppression happens – we need to know how it happens for real. The role of the facilitator is crucial-to constantly remind the group about the reality check and that we will not advance in the process if we don’t work with reality. If the group is stuck don’t take the easy way out by accepting faking reality – allow more time for research and for getting in touch with the reality of the problem you want to work with.
One performance can show the complexity and the process of oppression happening over one year or even faster – depending on the concrete example chosen. The Joker can announce to the public how much time has passed from one scene to the other. In Forum Theatre (by the approach introduced in this manual) a scene is defined as a moment, a situation from the story that takes place in a specific time and place – if the place or time change it is considered another scene.
For example: a scene takes place in the house – the daughter comes from school-meets the mother that comes from another room and they have a discussion – later on they all go to their rooms (scene ends); after a couple of hours the whole family gather for dinner (this is another scene-the time changes even if the space is same).
It is important to choose exactly those elements that are part of the core of the story and not to allow unnecessary elements and dilemmas (which take time, are just fun or sometimes boring and don’t give any opportunity for the public to make any change (for example: long time allocated to characters doing nothing or talking by themselves on the stage (without signifiant meaning, long small talks between the characters that are not providing any relevant information to the public, discussions providing unnecessary or even confusing details, etc). Several details can be mentioned through different discussions in order to fill the gaps of the story (for example talking about somebody’s father already introduces his presence in the story, talking with somebody on the phone and communicating important details introduces that person as well, sharing between characters about aspects that happened in between the scenes (but that were not showend on the stage, etc.)
In the graphic below – which is a reference tool to be used by any facilitator, to be introduced to the participants and used as guidelines for construction-we have 2 dimensions – one is the time (which refers to the duration of the performance and not the duration of the oppression) and the other one shows the tension on stage, given by the intensity of the oppression. The structure of the scene is explained using the graphic like this:
Scene 1-at the beginning of the play-has a lower tension and is also named an INTRODUCTORY scene (the public should understand a little of what the story is about out of this scene - some of the characters, their relations, context and the beginning of a potential problem that might exist between some of the characters). This scene should contain enough space for the public to come and make changes and not to be empty in this sense.
Scene 2-3 known as “RISING ACTION” – the tension is growing, the public gets to know the situation better, the characters, the relation between them, we see how the oppression is growing in intensity (especially in the direct interaction between oppressed and oppressor).
Scene 4 – CRISIS – this is the last scene in which we (the public) participate in the highest peak of the oppression and tension, we see the biggest power imbalances, we see an oppressed who has used the last drop of their power and we see how this makes the oppressed take a wrong decision for her/his future.
Immediately after the decision is made, (and this decision needs to be clearly stated so the public fully understands it) the performance stops. We stop it when it is still high in terms of tension because we want to keep the public with the urge to do something and stopping the play at this moment increases the chances that the public will have a stronger wish to do something for the oppressed and to prevent him/her from reaching that crisis point again.
Why does the decision need to be clearly stated by the oppressed?
If the oppressor is very dominating (maybe shouting, threatening, cursing, forcing, aggressing, etc.) and the oppressed doesn’t reply verbally it can lead to a variety of interpretations from the public.
This interpretation process could happen in the public’s mind as the position of the oppressed (after the highest point of the oppression) is not clear to them and it could make it more difficult to motivate them later to come on the stage and make changes (some of the public members might think it is not needed).
Other useful aspects or details that might help in the construction of a Forum theatre Performance
Of course sometimes we have scenes that require (for higher realism) modifications that could be done in between the scenes – preferably not by the actors (but the Joker and other volunteers). Actors should remain in the perception of the public only as the people involved in the story they are showing, as close to reality as possible and having them assume non-role duties could affect the perception of the public by reminding them of the fact that they are (just) playing a role.
What this means in fact is that they don’t come on the stage as an aim (to be on the stage) but rather that they come from the break to the classroom, from outside to inside the house, to a meeting place with a friend, etc. and while they enter the stage through their acting and talking we should be able to understand where they are and why they are there. So you need to avoid actions like coming on stage, sitting on a chair and only then starting the scene. The same for finishing the scene.
The scene doesn’t end on the stage and then the actors – oops-they just get off the stage suddenly-they need to have a reason to go so the action runs smoothly and as realistically as possible. For example: mother tells the family that dinner is ready and they all go to another room to eat, class ends and the students go out on their break, etc.- the actors need to provide the information-reason before they get off the stage.
The use of a microphone is of course something that, if you perform in a noisy public space for a big crowd, is often needed but if your conditions allow, do not use it – work more with the voice of the actors and they will be able to project higher and higher.
The actors need to develop their constant awareness in relation to the public-what is the public getting out of our story? The public doesn’t know all the details that we have discussed as a team about the topic presented, we show extracts from it but these extracts need to make sense and to give a coherent meaning all together.
Therefore the actors constantly need to pay attention to how loudly they talk, how they place themselves on the stage (not to turn their backs at any time when they talk), what information they make sure they provide on the stage, to improvise if needed: for example if they realise their colleagues are talking too low to help them talk more loudly so then the public will also hear better: “What did you say, I didn’t hear you, could you please talk more loudly” (the public will think it is part of the script).
The actors need to be aware of their multiple roles on the stage – the role of the Character in the story, the Forum Theatre Team member, Public Helper (to help the public to understand as accurate as possible the action from the stage) and of course the actor’s own self and ego (that at times needs to be controlled during the performance – we will talk in later chapters about this aspect)
Structure of the unit
This unit is mainly discussion-based and needs careful guidance and facilitation to have a healthy consensus among the team members. If needed during the process the list (that was developed in the first unit) could be used by being reminded to the group. Is the list from the team building activities related to what will help the group to work more efficiently.
The aim of the facilitator is to make the group have the ownership of the process so he/she shouldn’t impose anything – it has to be a group process. Indeed the facilitator will introduce several concepts (mentioned as well in the introduction of this unit) which are part of the methodological principles the method is based on but other than that it is in the hands of the group to decide which topic, which story, how to build the timeline and the script etc. There is no stage director or script writer and in fact all the team members are going to provide input related to how it is more realistic to have a discussion or a specific set-up- they are all equal in this process of Forum Theatre development.
If somebody with more experience in FT or theatre is trying to dominate the discussion it could inhibit the other members from expressing their views so it is important from the facilitator’s side to include everybody and to make sure at all times that everybody’s opinions are taken into account.
The facilitator is the guardian for the process to happen in healthy conditions. It is very important to have an eye on the process at this stage (especially in the discussions part) as the level of frustration in the group will be the highest in this unit from this entire curriculum. This is due mainly to the fact that full participation from all the group members and the decision making process as consensus will challenge people’s limits and borders and will be quite tiresome mentally.
2-Emotion Bus-20 minutes
Aims- to warm-up the group, to develop participants’ capacity to express various emotions (to change emotions with ease, to express emotions as realistically as possible), to contribute to an easier capacity of getting into and coming out of a role; to stimulate imagination and creativity
Description- The space is set-up like a bus-there is a chair in the room for the driver, behind this chair are couples of chairs (giving the impression of a bus). It is explained to the group that they are going for a ride on a special bus.
This bus will travel around and will go anywhere the passengers want. The bus will stop for any person that wants to get on it and every interested person has to come on the road and make a sign to the bus driver to stop and ask him if he/she goes to a specific place (desired by the traveller). The special feature of this bus is that people get contaminated with emotions brought by the new travellers.
Every traveller has an emotion, mood which has to be visible in the way they act, talk, gesticulate, etc. and once he/she steps on the bus all the people that are already there will suddenly get contaminated with the emotion of the new traveller and everybody will experience that specific emotion (of course until the next traveller comes). The travellers / including the driver can get off the bus at any time and there is no minimum or maximum number of people that have to be on the bus at the same time.
They are reminded that only on the bus they have to express a specific emotion –once they get off they need to be themselves again as fast as they can. They can also go multiple times on the bus. Any potential questions are clarified and then a volunteer is invited to be the driver. The driver of course gets on the bus with a different emotion (than his/her own) and then pretends to drive around. At any time somebody wishes to get on the bus the future traveller has to go on the road and make a sign. The driver and travellers can also talk with each other, not only express various emotions non-verbally.
The exercise can go on as long as the group is enjoying it, become more creative and original and also the majority of participants try to take the role of traveller. The facilitator can encourage participants to get on the bus if he/she observes that just some people are very present. At the end the group can be asked to share a few impressions from the exercise and how it can help them in their work in Forum Theatre.
Alternative- it can also be a walking bus – so there are no chairs and everybody is standing and the driver is miming the use of a steering wheel and they travel around in the space for people. This alternative can get a little bit more chaotic and it can be difficult to see the change of emotions as clearly and fast as in the other option.
3-Steps in Forum Theatre-10 minutes
Aim- to provide information about the context of this session in the broader perspective in working with the Forum Theatre method, to introduce/remind the participants of the steps of developing a Forum Theatre Play, to help the group understand where they are in the process at the moment.
Description – The group is instructed that they will review together now the process of developing a Forum Theatre performance, what the steps are (and why) and where we are at the moment in the process (depending on what was previously discussed with the group when the Forum Theatre methods was introduced this can come as a reminder or as a first time introduction).
Please refer to the steps presented in the description of the method earlier in the manual. The presentation should be interactive, should connect the participants with the place in the context of development, to understand why they did what they did so far and what is ahead of them. Clarify any potential questions.
4-Oppression and sharing real examples-decision – 60 minutes
Aims- to have a decision in the group on the type of oppression they will work with, to share real life examples of this kind of oppression, to choose one example to be transferred into the play.
Description- If the participants had the reflection homework (given at the end of the last session) this will be discussed now in order to decide which area of oppression we want to focus on. The group members will bring different arguments and positions and the facilitator needs to take notes and focus the discussion at all times and to remind them what they have discussed or achieved so far.
This first part of the discussion aims to focus on type of oppression to work with (and to also think what target group they want to have for activating a change).
Once the group (with an assumed consensus) decide on what oppression to focus on the next step is to share concrete real life stories that reflect that oppression. At this stage participants are encouraged to share stories they know personally and to give details about who was oppressed, oppressor, allies, neutral and what happened in the story if the story has any end so far.
The facilitator has to take notes and at the beginning everybody is invited to share a story – no comments or evaluation of the story are allowed – just questions to understand better. The group needs to share real stories, not invented, and they can be reminded of this. This can also be checked with questions for the people sharing a specific story.
NOTE-it is important to remind the group to share only what they are comfortable sharing with the others and not to push themselves more than what they can handle in terms of emotional reactions (especially if these stories are very close to their reality and life).
Once all the stories are collected they are reviewed and analysed by the group. The facilitator will make the summary – the others can be involved as well in making the summary and then the group is invited to think and reflect on the stories shared.
Based on the answers to these questions the stories proposed will be narrowed down to just a few. And starting from here once again the discussion continues in order to choose the one they consider should be reflected in the FT play. The questions mentioned before should be repeated from time to time if the group starts to deviate and lose focus.
If the discussion gets stuck, if people have strong positions and they seem to be more focused on winning the argument than on the wellbeing of the group (and/or advancing in the process) you can ask the group at that moment to close their eyes and provide some reflection guidelines.
All these questions are addressed but no answer is expected – they are just for the group members to take a break and reflect on what is happening.
The outcome needs to be one real story that will be the basis for the Forum Theatre play.
5-Run and Project– 10 minutes
Aims - to energize the group, to change the energy dynamic, to help the group focus and coordinate;
Description: The group is told to wait until the instructions are given before they start the activity. They will have to walk around the space in fast speed-if the space allows it is in fact advisable to run from one side to the other.
At some moments the facilitator will shout: Corner projection, ceiling projection, floor projection, mirror projection etc. (depending how your space is constructed – it has to be various walls of the space or areas). Anytime they hear this indication they have to stop and to project as a statue in the direction mentioned by the facilitator.
It can be whatever they understand – pointing at that space, looking at it, staring at it, having a reaction from it, etc.- they don’t have to overthink it, just do it. They stay like that for a couple of seconds and then the facilitator signals to run again and another kind of projection will be mentioned.
After a few rounds the facilitator can start indicating other types of projections: Forest Projection; Happiness Projection, Power projection, Sky projection which can be interpreted as they wish.
This exercise is not about reproducing the words but any kind of reaction to it or letting the imagination free - it happens very fast, only for a couple of seconds, and people will run in between projections. The facilitator will continue until the group is energized enough and not overtired.
6-Initial draft –real story in Forum Theatre structure - 60 minutes
Aims- to transfer the chosen story in the format of Forum Theatre; to develop the draft script
Description – The facilitator will introduce the main characteristics of what a Forum Theatre Play should look like (please refer to the beginning of this unit for guidelines in this sense) in order for the participants to understand better and already make connections.
All the potential questions are clarified and then as a group process (discussion and decision) the story line of the FT play is created step by step.
First of all, establish the characters: the Oppressed, his/her 1 or 2 allies, Oppressor, his/her 1 or 2 allies and 1-2 neutral characters. These numbers will depend on the number of people in our group and the plan in terms of people involvement (as doubles for example). It is very important at this stage not to assume that some roles have to fit somebody in the group-it often happens that participants get overexcited and already think ahead and they see some people fitting some roles: Oh you will be a perfect oppressor/oppressed etc.
The facilitator needs to warn the group from the beginning that at this stage we just construct the play and we do no talk about role distribution – that will be done after we finish the script – without somebody being influenced in the process by the role he or she might have in the play. The facilitator needs to remind them in case they seem to be forgetting about it.
Then the story line in terms of 3-4 scenes and how the tension will grow on the stage will be developed step by step. In this process it is now important to think about the public and what the public needs to get from us (as content of the story) in order to understand the process of oppression and also to leave enough space for the public to make changes.
So the key moment of the story needs to be chosen in order for the public to make changes at the intervention phase.
The facilitator could have already prepared some big papers (flipchart paper) where to have already written/draw the FT graphic (in big version) with the story time line and to take notes that could be then added to the flipchart-the characters, in which scene they will appear, the main aspects happening in this scene, etc.
At this stage the group doesn’t go into details but rather builds the general picture of the performance and its key elements. Some assumptions will be made in the construction, as in some cases the true conversations or the reactions of some people in real life are unknown but the facilitator needs to ask the group regularly if they consider this is real or not and not to allow anything that is considered not real.
It is also very important to make the group aware that they all need to guard reality (and the story they chose to work with) and not to blur it to a large extent. From time to time it is important to remind the group of this so that the story that it is based on does not slip from their minds.
The facilitator needs to be very careful at this stage and to observe the dynamic of the group, to include everybody’s opinions and ideas and also to observe how much harmony is in the group-if it is hard to make decisions, if they are rushed, with many compromises, a break could be useful , as well as a reminder to the group that it is not compulsory to have the full story line now (there is no pressure in that sense) and that it is better to take it at the pace of the group and it could be finalized whenever they need to finalize (in this session or not).
If the group does manage to finalize to a certain extent the draft they can be instructed that they need to incubate the process (by defocusing, taking care of other tasks, and letting the ideas that flowed in this meeting settle and rest) and at the next meeting they will go over the draft and see if they want to change something or not. They could also think (if they want) about the role they feel drawn to from the list of characters from the play.