In Sum
Theater of the Oppressed provides tools for
people to explore collective struggles, analyze their history and
present circumstances, and then experiment with inventing a new future
together through theater.
Theater of the Oppressed is an arsenal of theater techniques and
games that seeks to motivate people, restore true dialogue, and create
space for participants to rehearse taking action. It begins with the
idea that everyone has the capacity to act in the “theater” of their own
lives; everybody is at once an actor and a spectator. We are
“spect-actors!” — a term which Boal coined.
Boal points out that when we are simply passive audience members, we
transfer our desire to take action onto the characters we identify with,
and then find that desire satiated as the conflict resolves itself on
stage, in films or in the news. Catharsis substitutes for action.
Boal, following Brecht, calls this bourgeois theater, which functions
to reproduce elite visions of the world and pacify spectators. He says
bourgeois theater is “finished” theater; the bourgeoisie already know
what the world is like and so simply present it onstage.
In contrast to bourgeois theater, “the people” do not yet know what
their world will be like Their “authentic” theater is therefore
unfinished, and can provide space to rehearse different possible
outcomes. As Boal says: “One knows how these experiments will begin but
not how they will end, because the spectator is freed from his chains,
finally acts, and becomes a protagonist.”
[]
Theater of the Oppressed encompasses many forms, including the following:
Image theater see TACTIC
invites spect-actors to form a tableau of frozen poses to capture a
moment in time dramatizing an oppressive situation. The image then
becomes a source of critical reflection, facilitated by various kinds of
interventions: spect-actors may be asked to depict an ideal image of
liberation from that oppression, and then a sequence of transition
images required to reach it, or to reshape an image to show different
perspectives.
Forum theater see TACTIC is a short play or scene that
dramatizes a situation, with a terribly oppressive ending that
spect-actors cannot be satisfied with. After an initial performance, it
is shown again, however this time the spectators become spect-actors and
can at any point yell “freeze” and step on stage to replace the
protagonist(s) and take the situation in different directions. Theater
thus becomes rehearsal for real-world action.
Legislative theater takes forum theater to the government and asks
spect-actors to not only attempt interventions on stage, but to write
down the successful interventions into suggestions for legislation and
hand them in to the elected officials in the room.
Invisible theater see TACTIC is
a play that masquerades as reality, performed in a public space. The
objective is to unsettle passive social relations and spark critical
dialogue among the spect-actors, who never learn that they are part of a
play. Augusto Boal said of one invisible theater intervention, “The
actor became the spectator of the spectator who had become an actor, so
the fiction and reality were overlapping.”
[]
A final point that perhaps can’t be stated enough: our movements need
to be more strategic and community-led! Theater of the Oppressed offers
arts-based strategy-developing exercises that foster collaboration and
community-led engagement. What could be more awesome?
Levana Saxon is an organizer and educator with
Practicing Freedom, using participatory action research, popular
education and Theater of the Oppressed to generate collaborative
community-led change. Over the last seventeen years she has trained and
facilitated thousands of children, youth and adults. Some of the groups
she has worked with include the Paulo Freire Institute, Rainforest
Action Network, Center for Political Education, Ella Baker Center for
Human Rights, Youth In Focus, El Teatro Campesino and multiple Oakland
Public Schools. She currently co-coordinates the Ruckus Society’s Arts
Core and facilitates trainings and dialogues with the White Noise
Collective (www.conspireforchange.org), which she co-founded. She can be
found at www.practicingfreedom.org
Theater
of the Oppressed provides tools for people to explore collective
struggles, analyze their history and present circumstances, and then
experiment with inventing a new future together
through theater.
Theater of the Oppressed is an arsenal of theater techniques and
games that seeks to motivate people, restore true dialogue, and create
space for participants to rehearse taking action. It begins with the
idea that everyone has the capacity to act in the “theater” of their own
lives; everybody is at once an actor and a spectator. We are
“spect-actors!” — a term which Boal coined.
Boal points out that when we are simply passive audience members, we
transfer our desire to take action onto the characters we identify with,
and then find that desire satiated as the conflict resolves itself on
stage, in films or in the news. Catharsis substitutes for action.
Boal, following Brecht, calls this bourgeois theater, which functions
to reproduce elite visions of the world and pacify spectators. He says
bourgeois theater is “finished” theater; the bourgeoisie already know
what the world is like and so simply present it onstage.
In contrast to bourgeois theater, “the people” do not yet know what
their world will be like Their “authentic” theater is therefore
unfinished, and can provide space to rehearse different possible
outcomes. As Boal says: “One knows how these experiments will begin but
not how they will end, because the spectator is freed from his chains,
finally acts, and becomes a protagonist.”[1]
Theater of the Oppressed encompasses many forms, including the following:
Image theater see TACTIC invites spect-actors to form a
tableau of frozen poses to capture a moment in time dramatizing an
oppressive situation. The image then becomes a source of critical
reflection, facilitated by various kinds of interventions: spect-actors
may be asked to depict an ideal image of liberation from that
oppression, and then a sequence of transition images required to reach
it, or to reshape an image to show different perspectives.
Forum theater see TACTIC is a short play or scene that
dramatizes a situation, with a terribly oppressive ending that
spect-actors cannot be satisfied with. After an initial performance, it
is shown again, however this time the spectators become spect-actors and
can at any point yell “freeze” and step on stage to replace the
protagonist(s) and take the situation in different directions. Theater
thus becomes rehearsal for real-world action.
Legislative theater takes forum theater to the government and asks
spect-actors to not only attempt interventions on stage, but to write
down the successful interventions into suggestions for legislation and
hand them in to the elected officials in the room.
Invisible theater see TACTIC is a play that masquerades as
reality, performed in a public space. The objective is to unsettle
passive social relations and spark critical dialogue among the
spect-actors, who never learn that they are part of a play. Augusto Boal
said of one invisible theater intervention, “The actor became the
spectator of the spectator who had become an actor, so the fiction and
reality were overlapping.”[2]
A final point that perhaps can’t be stated enough: our movements need
to be more strategic and community-led! Theater of the Oppressed offers
arts-based strategy-developing exercises that foster collaboration and
community-led engagement. What could be more awesome?
[1] Augusto Boal, Theater of the Oppressed. London: Pluto Press, 2000. ↩
[2] Interview, Democracy Now! June 3, 2005 ↩
