Ambush Art: Theatre's surprise attack

by Samantha Wu

There’s no telling what kind of conversations you can overhear while riding the subway. You might hear some guy bragging about a night of debauchery behind his girlfriend’s back, or a woman arguing with her teenage son about the colour of his hair. People will talk about anything in public when they think no one can hear them, but if what you overhear is an injustice, do you say something or do you keep quiet because it’s the proper thing to do? Maybe it’s none of your business; you don’t want to meddle in other people’s affairs.

What if the conversation you overhear escalates into an argument, even a fight, and someone runs the risk of getting hurt? What do you do? Whether you speak up or not, it will most likely stick with you until you talk to someone else about what you’ve overheard. Believe it or not, having you discuss that situation with someone else might be just what the people taking part in that conversation were hoping for.

The subway scene is a form of guerrilla theatre – theatre rehearsed in detail which appears spontaneous to the average onlooker. When they capture the attention of a large crowd, the possibilities are endless.

“This is how theatre can be used to disturb the powers that be and expose it (their message),” says Luciano Iogna of Mixed Company Theatre in Toronto. “It’s an excellent tool for following the trail of discrimination and repression and exposing those different levels.”

The term guerrilla refers to a type of warfare where opponents are attacked by surprise when they are at their most vulnerable. Actors are beginning to use this element of surprise in theatre by meticulously planning out scenes to perform in a public forum. The scenes start as simple conversations between several people meant to be overheard by a crowd before gradually growing into controlled pandemonium. Everything is planned: the timing it takes for something to grow and draw a crowd, the audience response, actors agitating the audience, even people acting as security in case things get out of hand. The same human desire that makes people stare at a car crash is probably what forces people to stop and watch this scene play out.

Guerrilla theatre started in 1965 as a vehicle for political protest. In 1971, Brazilian director Augusto Boal created the Theatre of the Oppressed, an interactive style of theatre fueled by social and political issues, turning theatre into a lot more than a mere spectacle.

“Theatre of the Oppressed was introduced in Latin America,” says Yolisa Dalamba, who studied under Boal in Johannesburg, South Africa. “There were a lot of intense forms of oppression, a lot of resistance. People were taking power into their own hands against various forms of oppression.”

All great art forms evolve over time and so has guerrilla theatre. Luciano Iogna co-founded Mixed Company Theatre with Simon Malbogat, a colleague of Augusto Boal. They used the techniques of guerrilla theatre, also known as invisible theatre, from Theatre of the Oppressed to engage a modern crowd with issues relevant to themselves, such as homophobia and cyber-bullying.
As for Boal, he continues his work with Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil, uniting with other socially minded thespians across the globe.

For aspiring actors, budding playwrights and performance artists who all consider being in front of an audience their second home, what better way to expose their work than by bringing it to the streets?

Last year, many Torontonians were treated to curiosity-provoking flyers declaring “Sunday, September 25 @ 6pm. Show up at the corner of Dundas + Yonge and wait for something to happen. It will.” With a headline like that, it was bound to capture attention. People waited around at the right place and time, and, as if on cue, a set of performers raced down the street with a megaphone. They were performance art students from Ryerson University with their own brand of guerrilla theatre.

It started out as an in-house production where students would perform works-in-progress for feedback. Audience member’s were given a chance to voice their opinions after each performance. Two years ago, a few of the students decided to take their work on the streets so the crowds wouldn’t know what hit them.

“This year we had a parade, a theatrical ambush we called it,” says Aviva Zimmerman, one of the founding members of Ryerson’s Guerrilla Theatre Company. “It started at the Ryerson theatre school. We walked down Yonge Street with a megaphone, banging on pots and pans calling out ‘Street theatre! Street theatre! Come follow us.’”

And follow them they did, all the way to Dundas Square where the group met with dancers and dove into their performance. Competing with the commotion of the bustling streets, the students performed bits and pieces from their ongoing projects.

“It’s all student written and choreographed work. It’s all new,” Zimmerman explains. “People come with scripts – some memorized. Some have costumes and others don’t.”

The street work encourages students to do something fun and entertaining, while building up their courage to perform in front of strangers. They are imposing and unapologetic as most artists usually are.

A number of students have turned their works into full-time productions, some being produced in Toronto by independent companies and the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival.

“Getting feedback on the work as it was growing, seeing where it needed to go and be tightened, was a really big motivation for me,” says Peter Katz, whose play Uncle Jack entered the Fringe Theatre Festival after being showcased by guerrilla theatre.

“For us, bringing it to the street is for the sake of doing it,” Zimmerman says. “That naivety of spectators who walk by thinking ‘Whoa, I want to watch that’ – maybe they’ll get a better understanding of theatre.”

People remember surprises and they’ll share the story with family and friends saying “you’ll never guess what happened to me today.” As more people realize the power this technique can hold over a large crowd, it may become more frequently used as a way to address social issues. So keep your eyes open when sitting on the subway or when you’re walking downtown, because you’ll never know what you’re going to see.