Theatre of the Oppressed

Theatre of the Oppressed is an arsenal of theatre 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 (see: PRINCIPLE: Anyone can act) in the “theatre” 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 theatre, which functions to reproduce elite visions of the world and pacify spectators. He says bourgeois theatre is “finished” theatre; the bourgeoisie already know what the world is like and so simply present it onstage.

Theatre thus becomes rehearsal for real-world action.

In contrast to bourgeois theatre, “the people” do not yet know what their world will be like. Their “authentic” theatre is therefore unfinished, and can provide space to rehearse different possible outcomes (see: PRINCIPLE: Praxis makes perfect). As Boal writes in Theatre of the Oppressed: “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.”

Theatre of the Oppressed encompasses many forms, including the following:

Image theatre 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 (see: THEORY: Framing).

Forum theatre 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. Theatre thus becomes rehearsal for real-world action.

Legislative theatre takes forum theatre 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 to the elected officials in the room.

Invisible theatre 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. During an interview on Democracy Now! on June 3, 2005, Augusto Boal said of one invisible theatre 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! Theatre of the Oppressed offers arts-based strategy-developing exercises (see: PRINCIPLE: Balance art and message) that foster collaboration and community-led engagement. What could be more awesome?

Originally published in Beautiful Trouble.