<insert crazy ramblings here>

Augusto Boal, the Brazilian theater director and playwright, died last Saturday.

I'd not heard his name before a month ago, but I feel that I should say a brief word.

I ran across it while doing some reaserch I was doing for an odd idea for a Kids programme item at Eastercon.

The programme item was "Zip, Boing, Bounce!" AKA Not Drinking Games. The idea being that a lot of the drinking games I played at university could be adapted to make them suitable for children. In fact given that I ran the Physics Society drinking circle, I was used to playing these with people who wouldn't drink heavily.

While trying to write down a list of them all, I remembered that I played a few of these before Uni. At drama clubs. From the ages of about 4 to 17 I went to a series drama clubs / youth theatres. Most sessions would run the same way. Initially some physical running around games to get warmed up. Then some sit down games (and in one case Thai Chi) to calm down and focus, and then either some improv work, or rehearsal depending on if a performance was coming up. I owe a fair chunk of my confidence to these classes.

So I went to look up some warm up exercises for actors to see if there were any I could use, and found that almost all my favourite games, from across all the different clubs I'd been in, were listed in Games for Actors and Non-Actors by Augusto Boal. He was a massive influence on Community Theatre.

Looking up a little more about him, I find that he was political activist too. "Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, he was jailed and tortured before being exiled to Argentina."

I really want to learn more about this man, and wish I'd thought to do so while he was still with us.

Last night I saw Pygmalion at the Old Vic, courtesy of the_magician.

It was a pretty good production. Mr Doolittle (Tony Haygarth), with his rants about middle class morality, was a particular highlight, and got several spontaneous rounds of applause.

It had a lovely old fashioned set, which required the curtains to be drawn so they could do the scene changes. At one point this trapped a sofa cushion on the wrong, so a hand shot out from under the curtain :)

My one complaint would be that Miss Eynsford-Hill (Emma Noakes) was far too quiet. I could hardly hear her at times.

I thought that the ending didn't gell with my memories of the musical. Having looked it up it seems that the ending was changed for the film, but I don't think they quite used the original either. ( Spoiler )