November 12, 2008: Rewriting History

Dear Friend,

History, everyone knows, is about perspective. That’s what’s beautiful about it. Everyone has a perspective. What isn’t so beautiful about history, though, is the perspective often chosen to represent the overriding history. I’m not talking about the general recounting of a horrific battle or plague. Those things are indeed ugly. I’m referring, instead, to the fact that the domineering power, class, peoples, what have you are usually the ones who write the history we’re familiar with. We don’t always here from the lower class. By “we” I mean middle class Americans.

That was my paragraph homage to the oppressed. What I really want to address is not rewriting history so that it’s “correct,” but rather rewriting history so that it makes sense in my curriculum. After having read three Augusto Boal books, all chocked full of goodies, and having a four year theatre major under my belt, writing a condensed history of forum theatre is rather difficult. However, one is usually able to write when one starts writing, which is what I did. Sadly, I’m still stuck in Ancient Greece explaining Aristotle and catharsis, without explaining Boal’s perspective (there’s that word again) on the subject. The trick is to take graduate level material (you read correctly, I wrote “graduate level”) and making it available to high school students whose first inklings of doing theatre are probably taking this course that I’m writing. The pressures on. What fun!

I won’t bore you with the details of the history now, as it’s quite long and not even finished yet. However, I’ll post a copy of the history when I’ve completed it. For now, know that I’ve done what every theatre historian (including Boal) has done and have mentioned Hamlet as an example to explain my points. Boal believes that the doing is what makes you what you’re doing. If you’re dancing, you’re a dancer. If you’re singing, you’re a singer. It doesn’t matter the training. You’re doing, which means you are. That being said, I’m a theatre historian because I’ve done what every theatre historian has done: used Hamlet as an example (ha!) There is a post-undergrad career for me after all!

Blessings.
Kailen