The Theatre of the Oppressed describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian
theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1960s, initially in
Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator
and theorist Paulo Freire. Boal's techniques use theatre as means of
promoting social and political change. In the Theatre of the Oppressed, the
audience becomes active, such that as "spect-actors" they explore, show,
analyse and transform the reality in which they are living.
History The Theatre of the Oppressed, a term
coined by Augusto Boal, is a series of theatrical analyses and critiques
developed in the 1950s. Boal is an avid supporter of utilizing interactive
techniques, especially in the context of theatre. Many of his ideas are
considered as "a new media perspective", despite the relatively early birth of
these ideas. Since then, these ideas have been developed more, giving them
meaning in a modern-day context. The creation of the Theatre of the Oppressed
is largely based on the idea of dialogue and interaction between audience and
performer. Moreover, these ideas have served as a framework for the
development and evolution of stronger ideas.
Terminology = JokerDifficultator =
Much of Augusto Boal's theatrical process requires a neutral party to be
at the centre of proceedings. This individual is usually called the
"facilitator". In Boal's literature this role is referred to as the "joker", in
reference to the neutrality of the Joker card in a deck of playing cards.
In most cases, but not all, this would be a drama workshop leader. This person
takes responsibility for the logistics of the process and ensures a fair
proceeding, but must never comment upon or intervene in the content of the
performance, as that is the province of the "spect-actors".
= Spect-actor = This is a term created by Augusto Boal
to describe those engaged in Forum theatre. It refers to the dual role of
those involved in the process as both spectator and actor, as they both
observe and create dramatic meaning and action in any performance.
Equally, the term "spect-actor" can be attributed to the participants in
invisible theatre and image theatre. Boal emphasizes the critical need to
prevent the isolation of the audience. The term "spectator" brands the
participants as less than human; hence, is necessary to humanize them, to
restore to them their capacity for action in all its fullness. They must
also be a subject, an actor on equal plane with those accepted as actors, who
in turn must also be spectators. This will eliminate any notions of the ruling
class and the theatre solely portraying their ideals while the audience being
the passive victims of those images. This way the spectators no longer
delegates power to the characters either to think or act in their place. They
free themselves; they think and act for themselves. Boal supports the idea that
theatre is not revolutionary in itself but is rehearsal of revolution.
Major branches of Theatre of the Oppressed
During the development of Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal worked with many
populations and tried many techniques. These techniques eventually coalesced
into different theatrical styles, each using a different process to achieve a
different result. Boal often organized these theatrical systems as a tree, with
images, sounds and words as the roots, games, Image Theatre and Forum Theatre
ascending up the trunk, and then other techniques represented as limbs stemming
from these. As more T.O. systems evolved, Boal and others have made
slight modifications to which techniques appear on various limbs, but the Tree of
Theatre of the Oppressed has mostly remained consistent:
= Image theatre = Image theatre is a performance technique
in which one person, acting as a sculptor, moulds one or more people
acting as statues, using only touch and resisting the use of words or
mirror-image modelling. Boal claims this form of theatre to be one of the most
stimulating because of its ease of enactment and its remarkable capacity of
portraying thought in a concrete form due to the absence of language idiom.
Each word has a denotation common for all as well as a connotation that is
unique for each individual. Each will have his own interpretation of
"revolution", and to demonstrate such idea provides a clearer understanding of
their intention in definition when shown rather than told.. For instance, one can
"embrace" another in many ways, however the word has the same definition of
clasping another person in the arms. = Forum theatre =
While practicing in South America earlier in his career, Boal would apply
'simultaneous dramaturgy'. In this process, the actors or audience members
could stop a performance, often a short scene in which a character was being
oppressed in some way. In early forms of 'simultaneous dramaturgy', the audience
could propose any solution, by calling out suggestions to the actors who would
improvise the changes on stage. This was an attempt to undo the traditional
audience/actor partition and bring audience members into the performance,
to have an input into the dramatic action they were watching.
Forum theatre was born from 'simultaneous dramaturgy' when,
according to Boal this concept of the 'spect-actor' became a dominant force
within Boal's later Forum theatre work. The audience were now encouraged to not
only imagine change but to actually practise that change, by coming on stage
as 'spect-actors' to replace the protagonist and act out an intervention
to break the oppression. Through this process, the participant is also able to
realize and experience the challenges of achieving the improvements he/she
suggested. Thus, Boal's current manifestation of
Forum theatre is as follows: the actors perform a play with a scripted core, in
which an oppression relevant to the audience is played out. After reaching
the scripted conclusion, in which the oppressed character(s) fail to overturn
their oppression, the actors begin the production again, although often in a
condensed form. At any point during this second performance, any spect-actor may
call out "stop!" and take the place of the actor portraying the oppressed
individual. If and when the oppression has been
overthrown by the spect-actors, the production changes again: the
spect-actors now have the opportunity to replace the oppressors, and find new
ways of challenging the oppressed character. In this way a more realistic
depiction of the oppression can be made by the audience, who are often victims
of the oppression. The whole process is designed to be dialectic, coming to a
conclusion through the consideration of opposing arguments, rather than
didactic, in which the moral argument is one-sided and pushed from the actors
with no chance of reply or counter-argument.
Boal clarifies that this practice is not intended to show the correct path, but
rather to discover all possible paths which may be further examined. The
theatre itself is not revolutionary, instead a rehearsal of revolution. The
spectators learn much more from the enactment even if done in a fictional
manner, since it stimulates the practice of the art in reality. When encountered
in reality with a similar situation they've rehearsed in theatre, forum
theatre evokes a desire in people to be proactive since they feel much more
prepared and confident in resolving the conflict. The practice of this form
creates an uneasy sense of incompleteness that seeks fulfillment
through real action. = Invisible theatre =
A form of theatrical performance that is enacted in a place where people would
not normally expect to see one, for example in the street or in a shopping
centre. The performers attempt to disguise the fact that it is a
performance from those who observe and who may choose to participate in it,
encouraging the spectators to view it as a real event. The Brazilian theater
practitioner Augusto Boal & Panagiotis Assimakopoulos developed the form during
his time in Argentina in the 1970s as part of his Theater of the Oppressed,
which focused on oppression and social issues.
= Newspaper theatre = A system of techniques devised to give
the audience a way to transform daily news articles or any non-dramatic pieces
to theatrical scene. The strategies are as follows:
Simple Reading: news item read, detached from the context of the newspaper.
Crossed Reading: two news item are read in alternating form, complementing or
contrasting each other in a new dimension.
Complementary Reading: information generally omitted by the ruling class
are added to the news. Rhythmical Reading: article is read to a
rhythm, so it acts as a critical "filter" of the news, revealing the true
content initially concealed in the newspaper.
Parallel Action: actors mimic the actions as the news is being read. One
hears the news and watches its visual complement.
Improvisation: news is improvised on stage to exploit all its variants and
possibilities. Historical: data recurred from
historical moments, events in other countries, or in social systems are
added to the news. Reinforcement: article is read
accompanied by songs, slides, or publicity materials.
Concretion of the Abstract: abstract content in news is made concrete on
stage, i.e. hunger, unemployment, etc. Text out of Context: news is presented
out of context in which it was originally published.
= Rainbow of Desire = Rainbow of Desire is a technique and
also a family of techniques explained by Boal in his book of the same name.
Rainbow techniques stem from Image theatre and tend to focus on forms of
internalized oppression played out by a protagonist in relation to an
antagonist. While in his earlier work Boal eschewed the use of Theatre of the
Oppressed as "drama therapy", he later began to espouse these more
introspective techniques as a form of "theatre and therapy."
= Legislative theatre = When Boal was a Vereador in Rio de
Janeiro, he created a new form of theatre called "legislative theatre" to
give his voters the opportunity to voice their opinions. The objective is to open
up a dialogue between citizens and institutional entities so that there is
a flow of power between both groups. Boal calls this type of legislative
process a "transitive democracy," which lies in between direct democracy and
delegate democracy. It is similar to forum theatre; however, the subject of
the production is based on a proposed law to be passed. Spect-actors may take
the stage and express their opinions, thereby helping with the creation of new
laws. Some 13 laws were created through legislative theatre during Boal's time
in government. The technique has since been used overseas in countries
including Canada and the United Kingdom. Other techniques
= Analytical theatre = A story is told by one of the
participants and immediately the actors improvise it. Afterward each character
is broken down into their social roles and the participants are asked to choose
a physical object to symbolize each role. For instance for one community the
symbol for the head of the family may be a piggy bank, since that individual is
the one who controls the finances. Having analyzed the characters, a fresh
attempt to tell the story is made, however this time removing some of the
symbols from each character, and consequently some social roles as well.
For example, the story would be perceived differently if the robber had
the police uniform and the hostage possessed a revolver. Through this
method, the participants will realize that human actions are not the exclusive
and primitive result of human psychology; the individual speaks of
their class as well. = Breaking repression =
Boal explains that the technique of breaking repression involves asking the
participant to remember a particular moment when he or she felt especially
repressed, accepted it, and submitted to act in a manner contrary to his or her
own desires. It is necessary, he explains, that the choice is a
particular incident rather than a general sense of oppression. The
participant describes that incident, which is then reconstructed and
re-enacted with other participants of his choosing. This performance is
repeated, except that this time the repressed is asked to fight to impose
his or her will while the others involved are invited to maintain the
repression. The conflict that results helps to
measure the possibility one has to resist in situations where one fails to
do so, as well as to measure the true strength of the enemy. Having rehearsed
a resistance to oppression prepares the individual to resist effectively in
similar situations that may be encountered in the
future.(Wardrip-Fruin,349) Boal states that the process to be
realized in doing this type of theater is the one that ascends from the
phenomenon toward the law; from the phenomena presented in the plot toward
the social laws that govern those phenomena.(Wardrip-Fruin,349)
= Photo romance = Photo romance is a romantic narrative
illustrated with sequential photographs in the style of a comic strip, usually
published in magazines and such. The technique involves introducing to the
participants the general plot without revealing the source of the photo
romance. Then, the participants are asked to act out the story, which is
then compared to the actual story as described in the source. The differences
are discussed thereafter. A particular story interpreted and acted
out may be a predictable, pathetic one, however at the same time this result
serves as a magnificent example of ideological insight. Boal argues that if
they first act out the story themselves then afterwords read the original
version, the participants will no longer assume a passive, expectant attitude,
but instead a critical, comparative one. They as well be prepared to detect the
poison infiltrating the pages of those photo-stories, or the comics and other
forms of cultural and ideological domination. This technique is also
useful to analyze television programs, a dominant source of poison directed
against the people. = Rituals and masks =
This technique attempts to reveal the ideological super-structure of a society
in the form of its rituals. "Rituals" in this sense describes the patterns of
human relationships and the masks of behaviour that those patterns impose on
the participants according to the roles that they play in society. For example:
a man goes to a priest to confess his sins; despite the individual identities
of the man and priest the pattern of behavior will remain the same as other
examples of this interaction. This will cause different scenarios to play out
even though the confession is the same. Boal argues that this is an
extraordinarily rich technique that has many variants: for example, the same
ritual may be explored by its participants exchanging masks or it may
be enacted by people from different social classes.
Organizations = International Theatre of the Oppressed
Organisation = Inspired by Augusto Boal, this
Organisation links other Theatre of the Oppressed groups to one another. The
idea is that others will help groups organize themselves and create new
centers for Theatres of the Oppressed. There are links to other organisations
involved with this projects so anyone can contact anyone else involved. This
online Organisation allows others to share information about the Theatre of
the Oppressed. The largest single organisation in the
Theatre of the Oppressed network is Jana Sanskriti. Set up by Sanjoy Ganguly in
the Sunderbans, a rural area outside Calcutta in the Bay of Bengal, Jana
Sanskriti has a membership of over 40,000, 30 theatre teams, and an
impressive record of art and activism which has resulted in major improvements
in health, infrastructure, welfare benefits, education and social awareness
through the region. Boal's ideas have been widely accepted and used by theatre
groups in Mozambique after the end of the civil war in 1992 to explain the
need for reconciliation and to discuss topics such as avoiding landmines,
voting in the first democratic elections and the rights of peasants under the new
land law. Grupo de Teatro dos Oprimidos - Maputo was founded in 2001 after Alvim
Cossa spent six months studying theater methodology in Rio de Janeiro by a grant
from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It
has presented plays such as O meu marido esta a negar, documented as a film by
Rogério Manjate, which discusses HIV/AIDS avoidance and treatment. This
play is presented in public places - markets, schools and businesses - and
the public is invited to attend and present their own solutions to the
unequal power relations shown in the play. The result is more effective than
a lecture in Portuguese or distribution of written material to a largely
illiterate population. = Centre for Community Dialogue and
Change = Centre for Community Dialogue and Change
is an organisation based in Bengaluru, India which is dedicated to the
promotion of Theatre of the Oppressed chiefly in education as well as medical
humanities. CCDC has conducted many workshops among diverse population in
India as well as abroad. = Medical Humanities Group, UCMS =
Infinite Ability, the disability special-interest-group within the
Medical Humanities Group of University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi,
India organised the first ever Theatre of the Oppressed workshop for medical
students. See also
Theatre pedagogy Drama therapy
Bertolt Brecht Lehrstücke
Forum theatre Invisible theatre
Cardboard Citizens Crowdsourcing
Jennifer S Hartley References
Rodgers, Mandy. 'McBuck' to open tonight. Red and Black 208
Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge:
MIT Press, 2003. ISBN 0-262-23227-8. Augusto, Boal. Theater of the Oppressed.
New York: Theatre Communications Group. ISBN 0-930452-49-6.
External links Glossary of Theatre of the Oppressed
terminology Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed
Inc. - PTO holds the largest annual Theatre of the Oppressed conference
The Forum Project - Sliding scale Theatre of the Oppressed training and
facilitation International Theatre of the Oppressed
Organisation Cardboard Citizens - The UK's leading
practitioners in Theatre of the Oppressed Training
Giolli Cooperativa sociale - Centro di Ricerca e Sperimentazione teatrali sui
metodi Boal e Freire - Italy Parteciparte Rome-Marseille
Preview of Theatre of the Oppressed Centre for Community Dialogue and
Change, India: Breaking Patterns, Creating Change - Conducting Theatre of
the Oppressed Workshops and Research especially in Education and Healthcare