Influences
Most of Augusto Boal’s techniques were created after he realized the limitations of didactic, politically motivated theatre in the poor areas where he worked. He found that his attempts to inspire the people living in poor or "slum" areas to rise up against racial and class inequality were inhibited by his own racial and class background, since he was white and comparatively financially comfortable. His new techniques allowed the idea of rebellion and the impetus for change to come from within the target group. Much of his early work and teaching was inspired by Marxist philosophy, although through his career he had not been restricted by this and much of his work now falls within the boundaries of a centre left ideology.
Paulo Freire was a major influence on Boal’s teachings. He and Freire became close in later years. When Freire died, Boal said: "I am very sad. I have lost my last father. Now all I have are brothers and sisters".
Boal is also known to quote William Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which Hamlet argues that theatre is like a mirror that reflects our virtues and defects equally. Although Boal finds this quote beautiful, he likes to think of theatre as a mirror in which one can reach in to change reality and to transform it.
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Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Without looking, then, to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction, but only at what is inevitably doing around us, I think we must regard the land as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen, the sanative and Americanizing influence, which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows.”
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“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)