Forum Theatre is sort of a game, and like all forms of game there are rules. They can be modified, but they still exist, to ensure that all the players are involved in the same enterprise, and to facilitate the generation of serious and fruitful discussion.
Dramaturgy
1. The script must clearly delineate the nature of each character; it must identify them precisely, so that the spect-actors can easily recognize each one’s ideology.
2. The original solutions proposed by the protagonist in the play (shown to provoke the audience’s interventions), ‘the model’ must contain at the very least one political or social ‘error’ which will be analyzed during the forum session. These errors must be clearly expressed and carefully rehearsed, in well-defined situations. This is because Forum Theatre is not propaganda theatre or the old didactic theatre. It is pedagogical in the sense that we all learn together, actors and audience. The original play – the model – must present a mistake, a failure, so that the spect-actors will be spurred into finding solutions and inventing new ways of confronting oppression. We pose good questions but the audience must supply good answers.
3. The piece can be performed in any genre (realism, symbolism, expressionism, etc.) except surrealism or the irrational; the style doesn’t matter, as long as the objective is to discuss concrete situations (through the medium of theatre).
Staging
1. The actors must have physical styles of playing which successfully articulate their characters’ ideology, work, social function, profession, etc. It is important that there is a logic to the characters’ evolution, and that they do things, or else the audience will be inclined to take their seats and do the ‘forum’ without the theatre – by speech alone (without action), like a radio forum.
2. Every show must find the most suitable means of expression for its particular subject matter; preferably this should be found by common consent with the public, either in the course of the presentation or by prior research.
3. Each character must be presented visually, in such a way as to be recognizable independently of their spoken script; also the costumes must be easy for the spect-actors to get in and out of, with the minimum of fuss.
The Performance Game
The performance game is an artistic and intellectual game played between actor and spect-actors.
1. To start off with, the show is performed as if it were a conventional play. A certain image of the world is presented.
2. The spect-actors are asked if they agree with the solutions advanced by the protagonist; they will probably say no. The audience is then told that the play is going to be done a second time, exactly as it was done the first time. The actors will try to bring the piece to the same end as before, and the spect-actors are to try to change it, showing that new solutions are possible and valid. In other words, the actors stand for a particular vision of the world and consequently will try to maintain that world as it is and ensure that things go exactly the same way…at least until a spect-actor intervenes and changes the vision of the world as it is into a world as it could be. It is vital to generate a degree of tension among the spect-actors – if no one changes the world it will stay as it is, if no one changes the play it will come to the same end as before.
3. The audience is informed that, in this rerunning of the play, the first step is to take the protagonist’s place whenever he or she is making a mistake, in order to try to bring about a better solution. All they have to do is shout ‘Stop!’; the actors must immediately stop where they are, without changing position. With the minimum delay, the spect-actor must say where he or she wants the scene taken from, indicating the relevant phrase, moment or movement (whichever is easiest). The actors then start the scene again from the prescribed point, with the spect-actor who has intervened as protagonist. (Again, Jokers uncomfortable with the ‘Stop!’ method, can use a more relaxed interactive method.)
4. The actor who has been replaced doesn’t immediately retire from the game; he or she stays on the sidelines to help to stimulate the intervening spect-actors, if they need it.
5. From the moment at which the spect-actor replaces the protagonist and begins to put forward a new solution, all the other actors transform themselves into agents of oppression, or, if they already were agents of oppression, they intensify their oppression to show the spect-actor how difficult it is to change reality. The game is spect-actors – trying to find a new solution, trying to change the world – against actors – trying to hold them back, to force them to accept the world as it is. But of course the aim of the forum is not to win, but to learn and to train. The spect-actors, by acting out their ideas, train for ‘real life’ action; and actors and audience alike, by playing, learn the possible consequences of their actions. They learn the arsenal of the oppressors and the possible tactics and strategies of the oppressed.
6. If the spect-actor gives in, he or she drops out of the game, the actor takes up the role again and the piece rapidly heads back towards the already known ending. Another spect-actor can then approach the stage, shout ‘Stop!’ and say where he or she wants the play taken from, and the play will start again from that point. A new solution will be tried out.
7. At some point the spect-actor may eventually manage to break the oppression imposed by the actors. The actors must give in – one after another or all together. From this moment on, the spect-actors are invited to replace anyone they like, to show new forms of oppression which perhaps the actors are unaware of. This then becomes the game of spect-actor/protagonist against spect-actor/oppressor. Thus the oppression is subjected to the scrutiny of the spect-actors, who discuss (through their actions) ways of fighting it. All the actors, from off stage, carry on their work as coaches and supporters, each actor continuing to help and urge on his or her spect-actor.
8. One of the actors, or someone else, must also exercise the auxiliary function of Joker, the wild card, the leader of the game. It is up to him or her to explain the rules of the game, to correct errors made and to encourage both parties not to stop playing. Indeed, the effect of the forum is all the more powerful if is entirely clear to the audience that if they don’t change the world, no one will change it for them and everything will inevitably turn out exactly the same – which is that last thing we would want to happen.
9. The knowledge which results from this investigation will, naturally, be the best that that particular human social group can attain at that particular moment in time. The Joker is not the president of a conference, he or she is not the custodian of the truth; the Joker’s job is simply to try to ensure that those who know a little more get the chance to explain it, and that those who dare a little, dare a little more and show what they are capable of.
10. The ‘forum’ over, it is proposed that a ‘model of action for the future’ be constructed, this model first to be played out by the spect-actors.