Chapter VIII. Forum Theatre Rehearsal Model Step 1. The group chooses a theme, or central idea, or subject matter. For this purpose, the group may divide itself in several subgroups.
Step 2. Each subgroup makes an image of the theme, which is a general image, an abstract image – all the participants make comments on it.
Step 3. The actors inside the image, at a sign from the director, show the logical movement of that image – what movement would each of the characters inside the image probably make. Comments.
Step 4. The small group decides upon a story they will play and improvise alone – and to do so they can use rehearsal techniques such as Rashomon, ‘Screen Image’ and all the others; then, they come back to the general group and must present the following steps:
Step 5. The image of the things – every thing on the stage speaks. We can shut our mouth but not our body: it will always be speaking. On stage we are always saying things with our bodies even if we don’t want to say anything. So it is with the objects, the things on the stage.
Whatever is on the stage must have a meaning and we never use on stage the same objects that we use when not on stage. If we need a telephone the last thing we should get hold of is a telephone, a real one: we must invent, create a telephone, bigger or smaller than a real telephone, made of materials very different from the materials telephones are normally made of, so as to show an ideological object, an object with a meaning revealing who uses it, what it is used for, when, how and why.
Not a single thing on the stage should be there ‘innocently’, everything must have meanings, connotations, ideas, emotions. The group should look at the things and make comments on their feelings about them, so giving voice to what the things will be speaking during the play, imperceptibly.
Step 6. The kinetic image – each actor shows, separately, the movements that their character makes in ‘real’ life within the staged location. Comments from the group on what they have felt and seen.
Step 7. The group must make the image of the Chinese crisis, that is to say, the image of the crucial moment when the protagonist has to take the irreversible action or to say the irreversible word that will determine the outcome of the scene.
Step 8. The actors inside the image, at a sign from the director, should all at the same time speak the monologue of their desire – what each one of them desires in concrete terms.
Step 9. The image of the desire in action – the actors should show in slow motion their desires in action.
After these steps, the group should make a total improvisation.