Theatre of the Oppressed in Turkey

by Ebru Gokdag, Anadolu University, Eskisehir

This article will discuss one of most popular Theatre of the Oppressed technique, the Forum Theatre employed with second-year theatre students at Anadolu University Theatre conservatory in Turkey. The tone of this discussion is primarily documentary, with the goal of providing the reader with a visual and pragmatic account of Theatre of the Oppressed practice within a specifically Turkish context. My goal was to discover the applicability of TO techniques in their original structure in Turkey.

In workshops Augusto Boal himself conducts in various parts of the world both the joker and the participants are ready and willing to engage in work together. Participants come to workshops prepared to confront oppressions from the participant’s real lives. In most cases Theatre of the Oppressed practitioners work only with people who have invited them to do a workshop on a particular topic or oppression. The initial problem with students at Anadolu University was that nobody invited anyone to do a Theatre of the Oppressed work, since nobody knew what the Theatre of the Oppressed was all about—and even if they had known, it is doubtful that an invitation would have been extended anyway. Thus the ideal audience, i.e. theatre people, educators, activists, or social workers ready and eager to learn more about the Theatre of the Oppressed--and even pay for the privilege of doing so—was not there. How to invite an audience then, to this, what I call, case study? How to get people to a point where they would want to practice Theatre of the Oppressed? I decided simply to be honest with people and tell them my goals, and ask for their help in the planned proceedings.

But how does one know if he or she is ready to be a Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner? There are no predetermined qualifications or established requirements for one to practice Theatre of the Oppressed. Thus anyone who feels like doing Theatre of the Oppressed, qualified or not, may practice it. There are no certificates or schools for it other than conferences and workshops one can attend, the best of which are conducted by Augusto Boal himself. A knowledge of Augusto Boal's writings, along with the ideas of Paulo Freire is helpful, as are the writings of others who likewise have done Theatre of the Oppressed workshops. Perhaps the best approach is to follow Boal’s suggestion, namely to “trust” the people and work with what is at hand; trust in previous workshop participation helped to allay fears of making mistakes. Only when the workshop with the theatre students at Anadolu University began, did the fears begin to subside and confidence begin to grow.

Introduction to Forum Theatre
It was the third day of TO workshops at Anadolu University. As always we began the workshop in a circle, students chatted about plans they had for the day, I answered their questions about the exercises and the methods we have been practicing. Students decided to do less warm- up exercises and work more on Forum Theatre. Several students expressed their admiration for the Forum Theatre method and subsequently agreed to attempt another Forum exercise. At the conclusion of few warm up exercises (“Two by Three by Bradford,” “See- Saw Variation 66” and “Columbian Hypnosis”) Oykum began to regale the group with a story about her abusive boyfriend named Cem. She told the group about the time Cem visited her in her apartment and how, when she asked him why he was always putting her down, he verbally abused her.

After providing more specific details of the story, Oykum agreed to make four images of Cem and to put herself in the picture she had created. In discussing the whole scene and the individual images of Cem, the group sought to make connections between the images. They discovered that the three images representing Cem negatively were all in standing positions. The one friendly image of Cem that Oykum created had Cem sitting on the floor. Oykum placed herself behind one of the negative images; then she began to talk to all the images one by one, beginning with the one she considered most important and proceeding to the one she considered least important in her relationship with Cem. Then the images began a dialogue with Oykum and afterwards spoke of their feelings while playing the images.
She said the exercise might help her face a painful incident she has been carrying inside. Then without looking at anyone in the face, she relayed further details of her story.

The anti-model: violence against women
“I attended this international theatre festival at Ankara. My boyfriend Cem was also there, helping with the festival. Our relationship at that point was very tense. I decided to take some time off to think about our relationship and told him so. On this particular day, I was with a female friend of mine from the festival going through our notes about the lectures we had attended. At a distance there were some foreign students chatting on a bench. Then Cem walked in, angry, and asked to talk with me. I stated that I did not want to talk but he insisted. My friend said that she would talk to me later and left. I went to the side of the building where he asked me to go with him. He said that he wanted to talk about our relationship. I stated that I did not want to talk about it. He insisted that we should and I said, “No! I don’t want to talk about it."
He said, “You don’t want to talk about it, huh? How dare you don’t want to talk about it bitch!”
Then he hit me in the head with his fist and spat on me. Then he left.
I collapsed on the floor, in shock, I could not even cry. Sitting on the floor, I looked around aimlessly trying to understand what had just happened and realized that the foreign students were looking at me. I felt ashamed and immediately left for my room.”

The students walked through the scene, as Oykum staged it. How many people were there? What do you need for the scene? Were some of the questions students asked. They made a bench with two chairs and used a table to represent the wall. They arranged another bench in the distance with two students representing the foreign students. Oykum then began to pick her actors from among the participants. I asked students to ask any question they had for Oykum regarding the events of the story and about anything concerning the characters they were to represent. Once they had their answers and every detail about the story they began to act out the scene one time. That way they learned about who entered and exited form where and how the events transpired in action. They then did some exercises from yesterday’s sessions and added a new one to make the scene more real and polished.

The first exercise was “Reconstruction of the Crime,” followed by “Interrogation.” To this exercise the students added what Boal calls “Analytical Rehearsal of Opposite Circumstances.” The aim of this particular addition was, as Boal puts it, to “disturb the mechanization of action and reaction which can occur because the actor knows beforehand what he is going to say, do, and hear” (Games 214). The performers were thus to do what audience members asked them to for the entire scene; that included laughing, crying, jumping, behaving like they were retarded, like they are all cool, like they are all whores, and other forms of eccentric comportment. The student performers themselves also had suggestions they wanted to implement.

The interventions
Gulin, for example, stated that she wanted to replace Oykum. When Cem walked in and asked Gulin to come with him to the corner, Gulin did not leave her seat. After insisting that she follow him, Cem forcibly pulled Gulin up and dragged her to the corner. Gulin screamed that she did not want to talk. Then Cem using her resistance as an excuse, hit her in the head, spat on her, and left the scene.

Gulin wanted to replace Senem, who had portrayed Oykum’s friend in the scene. When Cem entered the scene, Gulin began to cry, as if she and Cem were good friends and she was asking Cem’s help. Gulin maneuver distracted Cem’s attention momentarily, but Gulin could not keep Cem’s attention for long. Cem put Gulin on the chair and told her to breathe deeply while he pulled Oykum to the side. He did so with astonishing smoothness and agility, which shocked everybody. When he got Oykum alone, Cem hit her. Gulin was upset that Cem got away with beating Oykum, since her ploy to distract him had not been effective. She stated that she wanted to try something else and replaced Oykum. When Cem asked for Gulin to come aside to talk with him, Gulin passed out. Cem suddenly feared for her health asked for help from foreigners attending the conference. Gulin started laughing, but Cem stayed in his character and took advantage of the situation. He thought she was teasing him, which gave him another opportunity to vent his anger. “Do you have any other tricks?” he asked. Gulin trying to stay in character by remaining in her passed out position. Cem shook her couple of times, than hit her head, spat on her, and left the scene.

Isilay also wanted to replace Oykum. She talked with Cem sweetly, telling him she would love to talk with him but at the moment she was feeling out of sorts and didn’t feel up to a heavy conversation. Cem replied that he too was feeling out of sorts, but he insisted they should talk. Without even waiting for Isilay’s reply, he hit her in the head and spat on her.

Oykum wanted to try the scene again from a new angle she had developed for herself. As Oykum was talking with her female friend about the lecture, she kept looking to see if Cem was coming. Once she saw him from a distance she took her friend by the hand and escaped with her friend. Cem walked in as fast as he could to catch her in the bench but he was too late. He looked around and waited for Oykum to come back, and after a while he left.

Oykum’s last intervention concluded the Forum Theatre since there were no other suggestions from the rest of the group. There then began a session of sitting in the circle and talking about solutions including the MAGIC ones. Oykum did not talk but simply listened to the other students as she tried hard to hold back her tears. She seemed lost in thoughts. Our long talk about the scene and about Forum Theatre in general concluded the workshop for the day.

Conclusion
Several concerns emerged from attempts to apply Theatre of the Oppressed in Turkey. Turkey’s culture is such that stating community or personal problems or any kind of oppression through theatrical means or events is not accepted as normal. In Turkey, the present theatre culture has been imported mostly from Europe and sometimes from the United States. When theatre is produced in Turkey, it is always made for the people and the intention here was to make theatre with the people. Everyone in Turkey has a notion of what “theatre’ is, what its capabilities are, and what function it is supposed to serve. In order to practice Theatre of the Oppressed methods in Turkey, one has to tear down these preconceived notions first. Theatre of the Oppressed therefore, could become advocacy for the oppressed classes in Turkey as a means of examining the role of theatre, in people’s struggle for liberation, self-determination, empowerment, and equality once the notion of ‘ “theatre”’ is torn down or undergoes a major shift.

Students in the Theatre Department at Anadolu University, for example, were prepared by the third day of the workshop to translate notions about theatre altogether new to them into action. The liberation experienced by Oykum when she wanted to tell the group how her boyfriend had physically abused her was an indication of her trust in the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Theatre of the Oppressed methods can thus serve a political and social function, once the imported notion of “theatre” is replaced. Turkey may never be ready to accept Theatre of the Oppressed as Boal conceived it, but it may provide a basis for an autochthonous hypothesis of what theatre should actually accomplish or what function it serve in a society like Turkey.

What perhaps happened with the students was change at the micro-level. “For there to be truly transformative macro-revolutions there will first need to be truly transformative micro-revolutions within individuals and communities. It is here that TO has a role to play”(Doug Paterson, A Role to Play for the TO 46-49), in Turkey as initial step. A continues micro-level change may help transform the Turkish people’s perception of theatre, allowing them to accept Theatre of the Oppressed methods as an alternative tool for liberation. That transformation may take a long period of time, but once it is assimilated, Turkey may be able to stamp its own genius on this new art form.

Contact: egokdag_1999@yahoo.com

Under Pressure 11 - August 2002