governing you too. Now in the theatre of modern times, particularly Stanislavski, and Brecht. And Stanislavski makes this transformation of the art of acting from what was a symbolical interpretation and for example a gesture of love is codified. He changes a symbolic interpretation to a synalectic interpretation, in which if you are in love all of your body is going to show the love that you have and not a gesture that can be reproduced. So the signifer and the signification, my body as a signifier and love as signification they are indissociable, you cannot dissociate them. In the symbolic interpretation, yes you dissociated them. So he invented that. And Brecht who said OK let's cut empathy and lets look at the world from another point of view, so he influenced me, not in the sense that I obey what he says, I try to go in another direction. I have to find my own way that's what I want. And to finalise there are two persons that have influenced me, two Brazilians. One is Paulo Friere, with his method of education, which is a transitive method of education. And the other one is Lula, who has been 3 times our candidate to the Presidency of the Republic. A worker and the person who taught more what politics means in Brazil. I learn from him what politics is and not only me but millions of people in Brazil can learn better about Brazil through his speeches.

Tom     Who are your sternest critics and what have you learned from them?

Boal I would not say who has criticised me. I have never read let's say a serious work of someone criticising me. What happens in general is when they want to criticise they try to ignore. For instance in Brazil, when we did the 7th festival of Theatre of the Oppressed, we had 12 nations represented. all the critics of the theatre they said that's not theatre - what Boal is organising here is some other thing, it's not theatre. They did not write a single criticism to say it's not theatre, they just ignored. And in many countries this exists still. But I understand them and I forgive them because normally the critic he tries to judge and to value a work of art by what they know already from the past. If you create something that is not in the books yet, they don't know how to judge it. So they say it's not theatre - in my library I never found some things like that. That's why I write so much - to say yes it's theatre, there is a book (laughing) But my critics, they are those who ignore me and what have I learned from them is to shout louder. So that they can hear me and know that theatre of the oppressed exists.

Tom     These are 'magic if' questions now, Stanislavski. So these are fictional questions.

Boal      Fictional questions.

Tom      Yes. If you were the first minister in the new Northern Ireland Assembly and you had just won the Noble Peace Prize to strengthen your position within your party, how would you begin to deal with conflict resolution within the Assembly and by implication, in the wider community?

Boal First of all the question has two suppositions, one is very agreeable to me, the other no, I would have a fear. I would be very happy to get a Noble Prize (laughing) for what it means and for how much it means but to be the Prime Minister I would be horrified with this perspective. It is something you have really to be a specialist to be a good prime minister. I would never be a prime minister. But if I could give suggestions. I think that he should develop the popular arts because not only is it good in itself but it also helps the more professional art. I would say that I am sure, though it may seem like a paradox. I am sure that here in Ireland there exists many wonderful sculpturers that have never sculpted anything. Marvellous painters that have never painted. Why do I say that? Because in Brazil why are there so many good players of football - because people

play all over. Here suppose you had the same with theatre and the same with plastic arts. That you could go in popular centres of culture and anyone could go there and try to make a sculpture and someone would teach the basics of it. I'm sure that you would see that many people who have never sculpted, if they were given the means they would produce work we admire. Otherwise, lots of genius are lost. So my suggestion for the minister, and one day if I were minister of culture my own country I would do this. Everyone should have access to painting, to singing, to theatre, to ballet to everything and then you would see how many talents are being ignored, are being not allowed to prosper, to develop.

Tom     If  you had to convince the current arts council of Northern Ireland to spend more of their budget on community arts and community theatre, what key points would you make to them?

Boal      I would say that if he spends $1000,000 in a production of a play, who is going to get the benefit of that money is the person who are going to be involved in that production and in the spectators who are going to see the production. If he invested the same $1000,000 in popular art in creating popular audiences, who is going to receive the benefit of being involved in that particular event, but also those professionals because it is going to create more audiences for those professionals. So it's not that you should take all the money here and put it there but to create a balance in which the professional like myself, I am a professional, we should have our money from the government because art  in most cases is not cases, self sufficient, you need sponsorship. But, we should have a balance, popular art should be developed for its own benefit and for the benefit of art in general.

Tom      Finally, Augusto, what is the role for young people in relation to Theatre of the Oppressed?

Boal       I think that the same for old people. I don't make an age difference. I think that when we are very young as children we use art, especially theatre, as a form of learning how to live in society. They do role-play, children, in their games, there is the role-play all of the time. They play roles to learn how to behave in those roles. It's fantastic to see children playing doctors and nurses, playing police playing robbers. So its a way of learning how to live, how to manage and how to develop in society. They paint much more freely than us, if you give to a child a pencil and a blank piece of paper it begins to draw without any self-censorship. We lose our artistic drive to produce to create by the age of 10 or 11 most of us, happily some of us don't. Mozart never stopped producing music. What I think young people have in their minds is more fresh when they play or they paint so it's easier to work sometimes with children than with 17 18 years old but I worked with both. And I found it so beautiful when I saw an old person going on stage and playing a character and the joy that comes out of that person when the scene is over is so fantastic - it is happiness, they are happy, to do theatre makes us happy. And that's important to do theatre to be happy - you have to do theatre.

Tom     I  think  that's a good point to end the interview, Augusto Boal, thank you very much indeed and thank you for coming to Belfast, we hope to have you here again.

Boal      I hope to come back again, thank you Tom.


ENDS