The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy

by Augusto Boal, Adrian Jackson (Translator)

Rainbow of Desire is a handbook of exercises with a difference. It is Augusto Boal's bold and brilliant statement about the therapeutic ability of theatre to liberate individuals and change lives. Now translated into English and comprehensively updated from the French, Rainbow of Desire sets out the techniques which help us `see' for the first time the oppressions we have internalised.
Boal, a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician, has been confronting oppression in various forms for over thirty years. His belief that theatre is a means to create the future has inspired hundreds of groups all over the world to use his techniques in a multitude of settings. This, his latest work, includes such exercises as:
* The Cops in the Head and their anti-bodies
* The screen image
* The image of the future we are afraid of
* Image and counter-image
....and many more.
Rainbow of Desire will make fascinating reading for those already familiar with Boal's work and is also completely accessible to anyone new to Theatre of the Oppressed techniques.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction, Psychology, Art

216 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 1994

About the author

Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements.

His books are very influential. With 22 published works, translated to more than 20 languages, his views are studied in Theatre schools all over the world.

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like much of his other, inspirational drama guidebooks, Aesthetics and Theater of the Oppressed, Boal has a warm, humanist approach to what he does, as well as an effective method of getting other people to go to similar places. Here, however, he gives his readers (maybe just me in particular) too much of the whole spectrum for his vision, and it was way too frequent that I’d be blinded by some personal story or allusion, missing the point of any given activity. I am much more at ease with Boal in small doses.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the most part, Boal is your typical anarcho-optimist, a conservative by virtue of the Utopian tautology underlying his supposedly decentralized artistic system. He employs, when needed, a dash of Freud, some Stanislavski and Lope de Vega, a two-dimensional Aristotle and a primarily iconographic Marx, cutting and pasting, organizing to his purposes a frightening monument built "in the hope that after the carnivalesque paroxysms of theatre will come once again the Ash Wednesday of a new day's work." Though fairly well organized, the argument far too often employs the shallow seductions of hokey linguistic devices as conclusions, a prime example being "the image of the real is real as image." Though charming in its anecdotes I fear it useful only to actors for its delineation of the games or techniques that Boal associates with his Theater of the Oppressed.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original title for this book was supposed to be Cop in the Head but Boal's publisher said, "No one will buy a book called 'Cop in the Head.' You have to call it 'Rainbow of Desire.'" I fault it one star short of five because actually enacting the techniques described in this book are far more vital than the book itself, (and I'm just saying that because facilitating Theatre of the Oppressed workshops is what I do for work these days).

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adrian Jackson brilliantly translates Boal's complex, philosophical masterpiece on theatre, personage, and oppression. Boal relies heavily on devised words (like spect-actor), connotations, and metaphor, and Jackson captures these for the English speaking reader. Boal's book is more than just an explanation of the techniques of image theatre [especially Rainbow of Desire and The Cop in the Head, my personal two favorites]. The first third sets the beautiful foundation of humanity's interactions with and observations of self since the birth of consciousness, which is the basis for the creation of this new type of theatre, the Theatre of the Oppressed.

[Marijana Peršić]

"Solidarity means running the same risk!" Che