Cardboard Citizens and Forum Theatre

Although I already had an idea of what Forum Theatre was before I went into the Theatre I still didn't know exactly what to expect.

The performers weren't the polished 'shiny' drama school born actors that you might expect when you watch a show yet they pulled off a powerful, raw and touching piece of theatre which completely three my preconceptions. They told us three stories, one about a social worker having a tough time, a philipeono woman who was taken to work in England but was treated badly when she started the job and one about a boy in care.

As an audience we decided to look at the womans story. We picked out the key aspects of the story which we felt that something could have been done differently. It was interesting to watch as people from first, second, and third year drama took to the stage to take the place of the protagonist. The members of the cast in turn had to make it difficult for the protagoist to get their own way thus portraying that things don't always work out, that we have to work hard to get out of situations.

I liked that idea that Forum theatre can help show a group of people how to do things differently in a situation but I also liked that Cardboard Citizens didn't make pretty the outcomes, they didn't say that if you do this one thing differently everything will be good again. They were true to what they said and were honest about things not always turning out well as that would have been deceptive because life isn't easy.

In the post-show talk there were a few questions from the audience concerning offence. The joker didn't understand where we were coming from as as a company they have already had experiences with homelessness and do thorough research.

In the lecture on Thursday we talked about this further, we wanted to know if it would be offensive if, for example, a group of university students were to go into a hostel and perform a show about homelessness would be offensive, is it possible that we can portray this experience without experiencing.

to be cont