Refliukso
Training Spectators in Active Participation
As Augusto Boal points out when we are passive audience members we transfer our desire to take action onto characters that we can identify with.
When the conflict resolves itself on stage or in films or on the news catharsis substitutes for action.
Inspired by Augusto Boal and Bertolt Brecht we too are sick of BOURGEOIS theatre which functions to reproduce elite visions of the world and pacify spectators.
BOURGEOIS theatre is FINISHED THEATRE
They already know what their world is like and so simply present this on stage. This to us is of no interest we at refliukso think the world in which our capitalist society has created is although damaged, not unfixable and most definetely interesting.
''The actor became the spectator of the spectator,
who had become an actor so the fiction and reality were overlapping''
- Boal, 'on invisable theatre'
These plays that masqueraded as reality were performed in public spaces. There objective was to spark critical dialogue among spectators who would never learn that they were infact part of the play.
For us at Refliukso this isn't enough we need the ENSEMBLE to know that they are part of the event and to feel a responsibility.
They need to understand that they are part of something important.
As well as this they need to know that their views and opinions are they key, unlike theatre that is around they NEED to take the plunge they NEED to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT.