Art and the times: "Bullying" by Project Spect-Actor

Note: This essay is written for ROB7006: Studies on Modern Drama, part of Masters in Performing Arts, University of Malaya.

The Incident and the Play

In 2017, Malaysia witnessed the death of 2 young men due to bullying. The first case happened in the month of May at a military college where 21 year old navy cadet Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain was tortured mercilessly. He was accused of stealing the laptop of a friend and to get a confession out of him, was kicked repeatedly by a group of young men. The final straw of the incident was when he was burned with a clothes iron, causing severe injuries. After 4 days of hospitalisation, he succumbed to his injuries.

The following month, 18 year old T. Nhaveen was beaten with a helmet into a state of brain-dead by a group of boys at an open field in Georgetown. The boy was said to be confronted by the perpetrators at a burger stall one night after returning from his new job at a local shopping franchise. In the brutal attack which was believed to be a hate crime targeting Navin’s effeminate demeanour, he was also sodomised with a blunt object and burned on his back. A few days later, he passed away.

The passing of these young men caused an outrage in the country with many citizens calling for the execution of the bullies. To date, the perpetrators behind the former case would be facing justice soon while the later had already been charged for the crime of murder.

These incidences too brought into discussion the concept of toxic masculinity, detailing how in our society, men are always expected to be tough and not show any weaknesses. The idea takes its roots from the notion of power and impulsiveness, sometimes leading into violence. As a result, men become stoic, less expressive of their feelings, harbouring mental health problems and distances themselves from vulnerability in fear of being seen as effeminate by other men.

Because art is always in response to the times, the artistic community in Malaysia addressed these issues through cinema, on stage and other mediums. In theatre, one of the performances addressing this issue is titled “Bullying: A theatre of the Oppressed” which was performed by the travelling theatre group Project Spect-Actor. The play was staged 18 times from 2017 to 2018 as public showcases and performances catered directly to young audiences – the demography most affected by bullying. Some of the venues in which this play was performed are at Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Brickfields Asia College, Sunway University, Sri KL international School and Sri UCSI International School. In 2 performances commissioned by UNICEF, the team performed the piece to the Semai Orang Asli Community in Kampung Pawong, Perak and the government school SMK Bandar Baru Sri Petaling.

Forum Theatre as a tool for Modern Ideas

The play is presented in the form of Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre, a branch of Theatre of the Oppressed. This form is in line with the ideas of modernity and rejects notions provided by traditional forms of theatre as Boal himself considers the conventional method of staging as oppressive. He argues that its monogical and not dialogical, thus not allowing the audience to participate.

As an art form, Forum theatre stands for the ideologies of supporting democracy over hierarchy, pro-freedom of speech, supporting cooperation over competition, anti-establishment, anti- violence and pro-pacifism. These are values championed in modern times as opposed to the feudalistic values of the past.

The history of theatre of the oppressed began at Rio de Jenero, Brazil when the country underwent a military coup, resulting in great poverty, crime and oppression. At that time, Boal was an advocate of the agit-prop theatre (agitate-propaganda) in which theatre is used as a provoking tool to forward an ideology. He eventually had a change of heart upon realizing how the actors involved in his production was not willing to fight for the causes the play advocates. This brought into question the effectiveness of his methods and lead him to develop Forum theatre. Forum theatre aims to serve as a problem-solving tool which brings into questions the partisan and social political constructs which resulted into the terrible status quo. In the words of Boal, “the theatre itself is not revolutionary: It is a rehearsal for the revolution”.

Audience participation is integral in Forum Theatre. It calls its audience “spect-actors” which is an opposite of a spectator. A spectator watches an incident passively but a spect- actor would respond to the scenario.

A conventional session of Forum Theatre begins with games in which actors and audiences must participate. The purpose behind this is to loosen up the audiences and build a relationship between both sides. Once settled, the audience will be presented with a play – a scenario of oppression where the protagonist would fail to achieve what they desire due to a social injustice.

The audience would then be introduced to “The Joker” a character which serves as a mediator to discuss the play with the audience. The Joker must remain neutral at all times and the discourse would lead to a number of potential solutions proposed by audience members. The final phase is for the audience to test their proposed solutions by volunteering to play the role of the protagonist with the actors restaging the similar scenario. This brings two possible outcomes – which the audience successfully solves the problem and achieves what the protagonist wants or they could fail. These outcomes would be analysed and further discussed with the audience. At the end of the day, according to Boal, “a good debate is better than a good solution” because it sets into motion the thought process of the audiences.

Private Issues reflecting a Public Issues

“Bullying: a Theatre of the Oppressed” consists of 2 short scenarios. The first one takes place in a classroom where a young man was bullied for being not masculine enough. He was portrayed as a person who likes reading Shakespeare and romantic stories such as Romeo and Juliet. His bullies on the other hand are basketball athletes and hyper- masculine. The motivation behind the act of bullying is because the jocks and trying to “man him up’ through abuse. The power game is evident throughout. The bullies eventually results to physical abuse when the bullied boy decides to fight back. This was an attempt to one-up the victim.

This mirrors the incidences of bullying which happened in Malaysia – both involving young men and is related to the notion of Toxic Masculinity. The assault of the cadet is against the masculine backdrop of a military institution and committed by fellow cadet comrades. T. Nhaveen’s murder was said to happen after we was labelled with homosexual slurs. The attacks were clearly directed towards the victim’s identity, similar to the play.

Another classmates walks in but he refuses to interfere. After the character was made fun of, beaten and had his precious Shakespeare book tossed around, he attempts to report the incident to a female teacher whom is extremely strict, tired of the education system and had it with the student’s behaviours. He was immediately verbally assaulted and shamed into silence by the educator.

This again reflects the cases in the country because both incidences are related to education institutions. Zulfarhan was an electrical engineering student at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM) and the assault happened at the dorms which should be under the supervision of adults and educators. Somehow, the repeated abuse escaped the supervision of those in charge.

With the incident involving T. Nhaveen, the bullies were said to be his former schoolmates who had been tormenting the boy for a very long time. Like in the play, these incidences bring into question the role of the education system and highlight the failure of institutions to eradicate bullying.

The second play from “Bullying: a Theatre of the Oppressed” revolves around a family getting ready to leave the house one busy morning. The mother prepares breakfast while the father looks for his missing tie. The protagonist, a young boy was getting bullied at school and he was threatened to not make an appearance. As a result, he was trying to skip school to avoid the impending danger.

The obstacle standing in the protagonist’s way is his abusive father. He bosses the wife around like an object and violently grips her to inflict pain so that she gives into submission. With the father throwing around his displaced anger, there was no room for the boy to communicate his urgent desire.

There is another character – an older brother with very strong coping mechanism towards the abusive household. He plugs his ears with music and doesn’t entertain anyone. The younger brother’s plea fell on deaf ears.

The character of the elder brother captures the “bystander effect” where an individual passively spectates without wanting to get involved. This too is in response to the cases. Noted that the assault of both Zulfarhan and T. Nhaveen was committed not by an individual but by big groups, it brought into question as to why there was no one who stood up, reported or tried to stop the incidences from happening.

The incidences too happened at an open public space which is a field and a community space which is the dorm, potentially at the sight of spectators but to no response. This is specifically the purpose of Forum Theatre – to curb the bystander effect.

This scenario once again highlights the issue of toxic masculinity, exemplified through the father. He strives to be the alpha male in the house while enslaving the rest of the family, especially the women.

When the boy finally gets to communicate his goal, he was threatened by the father and had conventional standards of masculinity imposed on him – that as a man, he should be brave, strong and not quiver like a coward. The play ends with no one in the house paying him any heed and he was forcefully dragged out against his will.

Here, although the play also highlights bullying in a school premise, it was more interested to focus on the role of the parents in eradicating bullying. It brings into discussion the nature vs. nurture debate as to whether the construct of toxic masculinity and its tendency to inflict violence is innate or a product of the environment. The play stands with the latter, showing how an abusive household breeds abusive behaviour and removes outlets for bullied children to be heard.

In between these two short plays, the audience were invited to propose suggestions as to how the issue could be solved. It was an invitation for them to analyse the constructs surrounding the problem and try to fix it as its root.

Throughout the play’s multiple staging, many solutions had been proposed by the audiences to variety of responses and outcomes. A repetitive scenario is that things escalate quickly when violence is countered with violence, resulting in a far severe predicament.

An effective solution tends to begin with the characters identifying a potential ally and engaging them in a conversation. The audience would be quick to realise that the characters never needed to fight their battles alone but through the facilitation of discussions and dialogue as is intended by Forum Theatre could win allies to help support the protagonist through the hardship. These very acts, although not a performance is also in response to the incidences so that they can be empowered to become spect-actors and put a stop to bullying cases around them.

In summary, “Bullying: a Theatre of the Oppressed” encapsulates the values of modern theatre by advocating modern thinking via its form and design. The issues faced by the protagonists in the play is a reflection of the bigger ills faced in the country – specifically the issue of bullying and toxic masculinity. It aims to bring into discourse the issue and activate audiences to rise up and actively engage in problem-solving as a “Spect-actor” As quoted by Boal, “When does a session of The Theatre of the Oppressed end? Never - since the objective is not to close a cycle, to generate a catharsis, or to end a development. On the contrary, its objective is to encourage autonomous activity, to set a process in motion, to stimulate transformative creativity, to change spectators into protagonists. And it is precisely for these reasons that the Theatre of the Oppressed should be the initiator of changes the culmination of which is not the aesthetic phenomenon but real life”.