Hamlet and the Baker’s Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics

This is the autobiography of Augusto Boal, inventor of the internationally renowned Forum Theatre system, and Theatre of the Oppressed . Continuing to travel the world giving workshops and inspiration to teachers, prisoners, actors and care-workers, Augusto Boal is a visionary as well as a product of his times - the Brazil of military dictatorship and artistic and social repression - and was once imprisoned for his subversive activities. From his early days in Brazil’s political theatre movement to his recent experiments with theatre as a democratic political process, Boal’s story is a moving and memorable one. He has devised a unique way of using the stage to empower the disempowered, and taken his methods from the favelas of Rio to the rehearsal studios of the Royal Shakespeare Company.