A FABLE
Truth walked around naked and everyone shunned him.
Comedy strutted around in bright, fabulous clothes and everyone loved her.
Truth asked Comedy, “What do you do to make people like you so much?”
Comedy dressed Truth up in bright fabulous clothes and taught him to strut around.
Everyone began liking Truth.
Truth walked around naked and everyone shunned him.
Comedy strutted around in bright, fabulous clothes and everyone loved her.
Truth asked Comedy, “What do you do to make people like you so much?”
Comedy dressed Truth up in bright fabulous clothes and taught him to strut around.
Everyone began liking Truth.
The Misadventures of Uncle McBuck represented a near perfect example of what applied creative research as part of a University Theatre Season can be. Involving inter-departmental collaboration, I worked with Professor Robert Moser from the UGA Portugese Dept for three years in bringing the first English translation of Augusto Boal’s play to the stage. Readings, workshops, improvisational play all led to the creation of a political theatre piece that combined all of Boal’s signature theatre techniques, Invisible Theatre, Image Theatre, and Forum Theatre. To coincide with the production the department was able to bring in Julian Boal for a weeklong series of workshops in Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques. These workshops were open to the entire Athens and UGA community. The production had far reaching effect in terms of student research, two students received Fellowships to study Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques with Augusto Boal and to attend the International TOP Conference. In addition, another student formed The Justice Agents, our department's acting troupe devoted to using theatre for social change.
Dr. Moser described our collaboration in this manner:
"I was impressed, and inspired by Contini’s ability to overcome formalities and immediately engage his students on a level that was both intellectually and critically challenging, as well as deeply committed to the craft of acting and theater productions. The fundamental difference between Contini’s approach and what I see in most other teaching professionals, is that he is willing to take the same risks that he asks of his students. In other words, he inspires his students to push the boundaries of their own creative process and critical analysis, precisely because he demonstrates that he is willing to do so himself.
The rehearsals for “Uncle McBuck” were an exercise in team-building, collaborative brainstorming, experimentation, and open peer review, all in a supportive, stimulating, and challenging atmosphere. Contini set the tone for this kind of learning environment from day one. He possesses that rare ability of imparting a deep knowledge of the subject matter (in this case – that of political theater and techniques associated with the theater of the oppressed) while also allowing students to arrive at their own discoveries and opinions. He seems to naturally understand that fine, but critical, distinction between top-down teaching and encouraging the student to become a protagonist of his or her own learning process.
Contini has been an inspiration for my own teaching and general outlook on what it means to be an effective educator and scholar."
Dr. Moser described our collaboration in this manner:
"I was impressed, and inspired by Contini’s ability to overcome formalities and immediately engage his students on a level that was both intellectually and critically challenging, as well as deeply committed to the craft of acting and theater productions. The fundamental difference between Contini’s approach and what I see in most other teaching professionals, is that he is willing to take the same risks that he asks of his students. In other words, he inspires his students to push the boundaries of their own creative process and critical analysis, precisely because he demonstrates that he is willing to do so himself.
The rehearsals for “Uncle McBuck” were an exercise in team-building, collaborative brainstorming, experimentation, and open peer review, all in a supportive, stimulating, and challenging atmosphere. Contini set the tone for this kind of learning environment from day one. He possesses that rare ability of imparting a deep knowledge of the subject matter (in this case – that of political theater and techniques associated with the theater of the oppressed) while also allowing students to arrive at their own discoveries and opinions. He seems to naturally understand that fine, but critical, distinction between top-down teaching and encouraging the student to become a protagonist of his or her own learning process.
Contini has been an inspiration for my own teaching and general outlook on what it means to be an effective educator and scholar."
PERFORMANCE SCRIPT OF MCBUCK
| mcbuck_performance_script_copy.pdf |
Director's Notes
“What if there was a Revolution and nobody came?” has become a popular paradox put to question on countless bumper stickers. But working on Augusto Boal’s political satire “The Misadventures of Uncle McBuck” the more apt question seemed to be “What if there was a Revolution and no one laughed?”
While researching the period in Brazil, where Boal lived and wrote this piece, I came upon Saul Landau and Haskell Wexler’s startling documentary Brazil: A Report on Torture. In it, former Brazilian political prisoners reenact the daily methods of torture inflicted upon them by the American-backed military government's police known as “The Death Squadron”. First, what struck me was the young age—most are in their 20’s—of the former political prisoners. Secondly, I was haunted by one young woman who, while describing the sexual, emotional, and physical abuse she was subjected to, never stops smiling and even chuckles at times. It seems inappropriate and is unnerving. Finally, the interviewer asks her directly how, after all she has been through, she can smile or laugh. She replies simply, “it is how she gets through it”. It is no surprise that Boal, kidnapped and tortured by the same military regime, also seems to have never lost the ability to cope with oppression through laughter.
Laughter is the great political and social leveler. We love to see someone unknowingly sit on a whoopee cushion or trip on a banana peel ….that loss of status is as human as it gets. For the oppressed, it’s even funnier, and slyly anarchical, when the person letting out the unexpected flatulence represents an instrument of oppression; a dimwitted president, a greedy capitalist, an overblown superhero. It’s also interesting to note that Boal doesn’t spare the oppressed from being mocked. His student revolutionists are portrayed as unable to facilitate social change due to petty squabbles and egos. As with his Forum Theatre , Boal attempts objectivity in regards to blame and instead, shows the audience a social model and challenges them to change it.
Boal is not the first to take advantage of broad comedy to question current political sentiment. Storytellers from Aristophanes to Borat, from the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup to Team America; all certainly recognize that the horrors and hypocrisies of our current world situations can sometimes only be made palatable food for thought with heavy doses of sugar on top. Boal, too, blends cartoonish fantasy with violent reality and slapstick humor with political parody to comment upon the absurdity of a world unraveling due to pressures of ideological conflicts, military interventions, and most importantly, America’s cultural and economic imperialism. With the current world situations in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan the plays themes resonate as fully today as they did when the play was written.
Taking on adapting this play for an American college audience and keeping with the tone of the pop culture parodies in Boal’s original I have attempted to force the question by pitting the world outside the theatre (where you are asked to declare your patriotism, and submit nationalization documentation, where military seems to rule) with the cartoon world of the play inside the theatre; where the opposing political views can only be presented within the “safe” context of popular culture. It may seem that we can never truly reconcile the horrors of the world in Landau’s documentary with the ridiculous world of Boal’s play.
But, then I hear our current president George Bush say, “When we’re talking about war, we’re really talking about peace” and I realize we don’t have to go far to enter Boal’s absurd world.
“What if there was a Revolution and nobody came?” has become a popular paradox put to question on countless bumper stickers. But working on Augusto Boal’s political satire “The Misadventures of Uncle McBuck” the more apt question seemed to be “What if there was a Revolution and no one laughed?”
While researching the period in Brazil, where Boal lived and wrote this piece, I came upon Saul Landau and Haskell Wexler’s startling documentary Brazil: A Report on Torture. In it, former Brazilian political prisoners reenact the daily methods of torture inflicted upon them by the American-backed military government's police known as “The Death Squadron”. First, what struck me was the young age—most are in their 20’s—of the former political prisoners. Secondly, I was haunted by one young woman who, while describing the sexual, emotional, and physical abuse she was subjected to, never stops smiling and even chuckles at times. It seems inappropriate and is unnerving. Finally, the interviewer asks her directly how, after all she has been through, she can smile or laugh. She replies simply, “it is how she gets through it”. It is no surprise that Boal, kidnapped and tortured by the same military regime, also seems to have never lost the ability to cope with oppression through laughter.
Laughter is the great political and social leveler. We love to see someone unknowingly sit on a whoopee cushion or trip on a banana peel ….that loss of status is as human as it gets. For the oppressed, it’s even funnier, and slyly anarchical, when the person letting out the unexpected flatulence represents an instrument of oppression; a dimwitted president, a greedy capitalist, an overblown superhero. It’s also interesting to note that Boal doesn’t spare the oppressed from being mocked. His student revolutionists are portrayed as unable to facilitate social change due to petty squabbles and egos. As with his Forum Theatre , Boal attempts objectivity in regards to blame and instead, shows the audience a social model and challenges them to change it.
Boal is not the first to take advantage of broad comedy to question current political sentiment. Storytellers from Aristophanes to Borat, from the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup to Team America; all certainly recognize that the horrors and hypocrisies of our current world situations can sometimes only be made palatable food for thought with heavy doses of sugar on top. Boal, too, blends cartoonish fantasy with violent reality and slapstick humor with political parody to comment upon the absurdity of a world unraveling due to pressures of ideological conflicts, military interventions, and most importantly, America’s cultural and economic imperialism. With the current world situations in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan the plays themes resonate as fully today as they did when the play was written.
Taking on adapting this play for an American college audience and keeping with the tone of the pop culture parodies in Boal’s original I have attempted to force the question by pitting the world outside the theatre (where you are asked to declare your patriotism, and submit nationalization documentation, where military seems to rule) with the cartoon world of the play inside the theatre; where the opposing political views can only be presented within the “safe” context of popular culture. It may seem that we can never truly reconcile the horrors of the world in Landau’s documentary with the ridiculous world of Boal’s play.
But, then I hear our current president George Bush say, “When we’re talking about war, we’re really talking about peace” and I realize we don’t have to go far to enter Boal’s absurd world.