Professor Federico Pous' Spanish 4530 Magical Realism Class put on a participatory theater performance inspired by the Spanish "Teatro Foro" revolving around social themes related to adulting and transitioning from student to professional.
A wide array of students, many from upper-level Spanish courses, taught by Senior Lecturer in Spanish April Post and Associate Professor of Spanish Mayte de Lama, gathered in LaRose Commons to view and intervene in a participatory theater performance put on by Associate Professor of Spanish Federico Pous’ “Spanish 4530 Magical Realism class.”
This cohort of eight upper-level Spanish students–Raquel Berrocal de Castro, Ally Cisar, Lorenzo Tibolla, Merritt Edwards, Hunter Siegel, Izzy Greenstein, Tobias Coker and Anne Rhodes, all in Professor Pous’ class, had spent the previous month immersing themselves in the history and functions of participatory theatre. Also called Forum Theatre, this concept of theatrical performance sprung out of the “Theatre of the Oppressed” movement in 1970s Brazil (Augusto Boal).
Forum Theatre seeks to bring attention to relevant social issues and themes through a 5-10 minute sketch followed by an open conversation with audience members about what the social conflict represented. Lastly, the audience members are invited onstage, where they have the opportunity to engage directly with the material by replacing an actor of their choice and bringing in a different interpretation/action/solution to any scene they choose. The original and newfound actors then improvise the rest of the scene to flush out different nuances, choices, and directions the play can take.
Pous’ students fully wrote and produced two, approximately 10 minute works. “Una familia perfecta,” or “A Perfect Family” focused on conflict and family dynamics after a recent college graduate moved back into her house while “Dinero o moralidad” or “Money or Morality” explored questions of morality through a graduating college senior balancing a job offer from the industrial weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Both of these plays were developed to engage the audience with universal situations of conflict and morality so that they could discuss these issues, think about how they would respond, then gain the opportunity to go in and bring their perspectives to the conversation through acting.
The student performers were enthused to bring their course themes of examining the Magical Realist literary movement’s mixing of reality, imagination, history and magic to the stage.
“Fede’s class about Magic Realism really ties to participatory theatre,” said Hunter Siegel. “They are both about how people use imagination and theatre, whether through literature, movies, TV, music, or plays to reflect, process, and give commentary on real-world situations that could otherwise be more difficult or painful to face without a creative or imaginative medium. Putting on this play has not only been a lot of fun and a big accomplishment, I am glad to have seen the participants engaging in discussion about useful themes and maybe learning more about themselves in the process.”
The audience members were also enthused to see and participate in this project.
“I had so much fun attending Teatro Foro,” said Emma Kennedy. “I loved that it was all about controversial topics related to experiences we have as college students. It was easy to understand everything going on and the students were expressive actors! The interactive element was so much fun because it really made me think about the situation and how I might resolve it.”