Solemn Symbolic Session of Reopening of the GLC

as spoken by Augusto Boal at the former GLC Debating Chambers, Sunday 22 November 1998

In the name of Thespis, the first Actor who dared to jump out of the religious Chorus and improvise his own profane words, think his own thoughts, realise his own actions and, by so doing, he invented the Protagonist and created Theatre

under the protection of two excellent Gods: Dionysus, who invented Joy and Happiness, and Apollo, who invented Beauty and Order;

in deep respect for Ken Livingstone and all the Legislators who made the Law in London until 1986, those men and women who made this building to be the House of Words and the House of Reason, before it became the House of Silence;

in the name of the people of London, who have the right to let their own hearts beat in their own rhythms, to speak their own diverse voices and minds freely;

In our own name, all of us, we who take the responsibility to propose this Solemn Symbolic Session of Legislative Theatre; we, who believe that the "purpose of theatre was and is to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure", and further, we who believe that, if we don't like our image reflected in that magic mirror of the theatre, we have the right to invade that mirror and transform those ugly features into more agreeable ones – and, in so doing, transform ourselves and invent our future instead of merely waiting for it – we have the right to come back to real life to create a new and more humane reality around us;

Finally, in the name of Democracy, in the name of Freedom, in the name of Desire, in the name of Good Sense, we declare open this Solemn Symbolic Session.