TOPLAB - Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

—founded in 1990—

451 West Street

New York, New York 10014

(212) 924-1858

toplab@toplab.org

toplabnyc@gmail.com

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

Winter/Spring 2012 Events

"We must emphasize: What Brecht does not want is that the spectators continue to leave their brains with their hats upon entering the theater, as do bourgeois spectators." —Augusto Boal (1931-2009), founder of the Theater of the Oppressed

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point is to change it." —Karl Marx

Events at a Glance
(facilitator biographies and full event descriptions follow)

Unless noted, all events take place at:

The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (West Side Highway, at Bank Street,

one block north of West Eleventh Street)
New York City

Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:30 pm, and
Saturday, January 21 at 7:30 pm

We Live in Financial Times, Part 1: Blackberry Curve

a play reading and discussion

a play by Julia Lee Barclay and directed by Rik Walter; featuring Marietta Hedges, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon

***

Saturday, January 28, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Sunday, January 29, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

The Rainbow of Desire (two-day workshop)

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Saturday, February 11, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Introduction to the Theater of the Oppressed

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Saturday, February 25, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Sunday, February 26, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Image Theater (two-day workshop)

facilitated by Marie-Claire Picher

***

weekend of March 16-18 (date/time TBA)

TOPLAB at the Left Forum

Theater of the Oppressed for Self-Organizing and Building Community:
A Panel Discussion and Workshop

with Reg Flowers, Janet Gerson, Elia Gurna, Kayhan Irani, Marie-Claire Picher and Reka Polonyi

at Pace University, near City Hall
New York City

more info at http://www.leftforum.org

***

Saturday, March 24, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Sunday, March 25, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Newspaper Theater (two-day workshop)

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Friday, March 30, 7:30 pm

Un-Occupying the Spirit: A Report-Back on Theater and Solidarity in Afghanistan

a talk by Kayhan Irani

***

Saturday, April 21, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

The Politics of the Theater of the Oppressed

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Saturday, April 28, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Sunday, April 29, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Cop-in-the-Head (two-day workshop)

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Saturday, May 26, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm,
Sunday, May 27, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Monday, May 28, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Invisible Theater (three-day workshop)

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

Friday, June 22, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm,
Saturday, June 23, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and
Sunday, June 24, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Forum Theater (three-day workshop)

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

***

The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)

Winter/Spring 2012 Events

Full Event Descriptions
(facilitators' biographies follow)

Unless noted, all events take place at:

The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (West Side Highway, at Bank Street,

one block north of West Eleventh Street)
New York City

Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:30 pm, and

Saturday, January 20 at 7:30 pm

We Live in Financial Times, Part 1: Blackberry Curve

a play by Julia Lee Barclay and directed by Rik Walter; featuring Marietta Hedges*, Matt Higgins, Terry Runnels, Kevin Scott and Alyssa Simon*

* appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association

A darkly funny theatrical shell game wherein the conventions of character and story (in the form of Mike and James, investment bankers alone with an angry female voice they do not understand) collapse and attempt to frantically reassemble. Global capitalism as tragic farce.

A talk-back will follow each performance, which will include the artists, joined by experts in the field of banking and members of Occupy Wall Street. Anyone in the audience who wants to participate will be invited to do so.

Julia Lee Barclay is an award-winning writer and director, whose work has been produced and published internationally. She recently returned to NYC from London where she lived for eight years. There she founded a company, Apocryphal Theatre (http://www.flyingoutofsequence.org), which emerged from an experimental theater lab. She was awarded a full fellowship to complete a practice-as-research PhD, arguing in words and practice that theater can be an act of philosophy. Many of her plays, including this one, have been anthologized and most are also now available online athttp://www.indietheaternow.com. She is an adjunct assistant professor at CUNY (Hunter and Bronx Community College) and writes daily on Somewhere in Transition (http://julialeebarclay.blogspot.com).

Rik Walter is a founding member of UP Theater Company (http://www.uptheater.org) "bringing serious, professional theater to Northern Manhattan", and directed UP's inaugural production, All the Best Ingredients by Artistic Director, James Bosely. He has also co-produced UP's followup production, The Chalkboard Trilogy, by Nancy Nevarez, and UP adaptions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, presented as part of the Fort Tryon Medieval Festival for the past two years. Rik was an original Artistic Associate and tireless work-horse of The Present Company, founders of the New York International Fringe Festival (fringeNYC), whose production of Americana Absurdum, by Brian Parks and directed by John Clancy, won the coveted “Fringe First” award in 2000 at the mother-of-all-fringe-festivals in Edinburgh, Scotland. As an actor, Rik has played the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Orlando Shakespeare Festival and River Repertory in Florida, Connecticut Repertory, and Two River Theatre in New Jersey where he was named “Best Actor in a Comedy” for his portrayal of Gary/Roger inNoises Off. In May 2010 Rik was nominated for "Best Mail Performance" by the International Dublin Gay Theater Festival in the off-Broadway transfer of Elliot Ramon Potts' Loaded. He has appeared in 30 Rock, all the Law and Order franchises, as well as several soap operas that are no longer on TV. His film work includes: Hitting The Ground, One Below Even and Company K. Rik is an 18-year resident of Inwood, Manhattan where he also founded Men Without Garages, an interdisciplinary discussion group with beer. Website: http://www.rikwalter.com.

Marietta Hedges* (She/Polly) is an associate professor of acting at Catholic University and is Head of the MFAMarietta acting Program. She has worked as an actor in theater, film and television in China, London, New York, San Francisco, and the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. Her credits include performances at The Shanghai Theater Expo, The Camden People’s Theater and at the Etcetera Theater Club, London, La Mama ETC, The Connelly Theater, The Present Company, Jean Cocteau Rep and in The Ionesco Festival in New York, and regionally at the California Conservatory Theater, the Winter Harbor Theater and the Baltimore Theater Project. As a director she has worked in Washington, DC, Baltimore and San Francisco.

Matt Higgins is a founding member and director of Intangibles for UP Theater Company. He got a cupcake smashed in his kisser every night as Vic in UP's inauguaral production, All the Best Ingredients.Higgins is an Andy Kaufman Award finalist and an original member of Burn Manhattan Spontaneous Theater and Centralia. TV credits include The 2-2 (CBS 2012), Human Giant's 24-hour take-over (MTV), and Stand-up (Comedy Central). Film credits include supporting roles in Girl Missing (Amy Poelher, Kate Walsh, Adam McKay and Will Arnett), Approaching Union Square (IFC), andShadowboxer, a Lee Daniel's film (Cuba Gooding, Jr., Monique, Macy Gray, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Helen Mirren). Matt and Michelle Best co-wrote Halfway There, a TV pilot, which was an official selection to the 2009 NYTVF.

Terry Runnels: Extensive acting credits include national tours of The Sound of Music (Max), starring Marie Osmond; three National Tours of Annie! (Daddy Warbucks); and the Broadway production and national tour of Zorba!, starring Anthony Quinn. In all he has acted in or directed over 100 musicals. Some favorite roles include Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, Papa Charlie in Shenandoah,Charlemagne in Pippin!, and Gaylord Ravenal in Show Boat. Favorite directing stints include Jesus Christ Superstar, Annie, Guys and Dolls, Fiddler on the Roof and The Fantasticks. Terry is originally from Texas and Oklahoma, with degrees from Oklahoma City University and UCONN (MFA in Directing), and taught musical theater at Syracuse University. He is recently retired from teaching in Plymouth, Massachsetts and is always looking for excuses to come back to New York City to perform.

Kevin Scott has been directing, performing and teaching for twenty years. He received his training as a writer and improvisor from Chicago's world famous Second City for whom he was a teacher and director for many years. He is a founding member of three highly regarded and influential improvisational ensembles; Bang Bang (with Tracy Letts and Michael Shannon), Burn Manhattan (with Kate Walsh) and the legendary Centralia. He has directed short films that have appeared on Comedy Central and the Sundance Channel, plus dozens of Internet comedy shorts (including TMI with Ellie Kemper and Matt Oberg, featured in Entertainment Weekly magazine and The Whiffler with Jack McBrayer). He has also directed several TV pilots.

Alyssa Simon* (Other Voices/Stage Manager/ Stage Directions) is thrilled to be a part of this project again. Many thanks to Julia, Rik, a terrific cast and crew. She has performed in many NYC venues and with many companies including Joe's Pub, La Mama, Vital Theatre, Judith Shakespeare and most frequently at the Brick Theater where she is a proud Mason Member. A A NYTheatre.com Person Of The Year for her lead roles in Untitled Theatre Co. #61's Drs. Jane and Alexander and Marc Spitz's Up For Anything, she is married to fellow actor Lynn Berg. Website: http://www.alyssasimon.com.

* appearing courtesy of Actors Equity Association

Admission—sliding scale: $6/$10/$15

Reserve online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12129&reset=1 (for Friday, January 20)

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12130&reset=1 (for Saturday, January 21)

***

Saturday, January 28 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Sunday, January 29 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Rainbow of Desire

a two-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

Rainbow of Desire, an Image Theater technique, is a technique similar to Cop-in-the-Head. Where Cop uses games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized forms of oppression, Rainbow of Desire deals with conflicting needs, desires and wants among individuals and explores power relations and collective solutions to concrete problems. This is a method and set of techniques that is especially useful for teachers and educators who work with disadvantaged populations, social workers, psychologists and mental health professionals, and community activists and organizers who are involved with marginalized constituencies and constituencies which have traditionally been the victims of bias and discrimination. Rainbow of Desire is intended to examine conflict within groups, and to seek ways to resolve those situations of conflict.

This workshop is open to all and no prior theater experience is necessary to participate. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Please write to toplab@toplab.org to let us know that you will be attending.

Tuition—sliding scale: $95-$150

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12133&reset=1

***

Saturday, February 11 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Introduction to the Theater of the Oppressed

a one-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

This mini-workshop, designed for people who have been curious about the Theater of the Oppressed(TO) but have not been able to commit to a full weekend workshop, will present an overview of the basic exercises, methods and techniques of TO work. The workshop is open to all, and no theater or drama experience is required. If you've been wondering what this work is all about now is the time to find out!

Please write to toplab@toplab.org to let us know that you will be attending.

Tuition—sliding scale: $35-$65

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12134&reset=1

***

Saturday, February 25 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Sunday, February 26 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Image Theater

a two-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

Image Theater, part of the repertory of Theater of the Oppressed, was created by the late Brazilian director and cultural activist Augusto Boal (1931-2009).

Drawing on the theories of popular education developed by his friend and colleague Paulo Freire,Boal appropriated theater games and exercises for use as organizing tools by communities in struggle. These tools are designed to develop individual skills of observation and self-reflection, and cooperative group interactions. Image Theater is the ideal starting point for training in Theater of the Oppressed techniques. In Image Theater, leadership- and consensus-building games and techniques are used to explore relations of power and group solutions to concrete problems of oppression through "living body imagery". Discussions begin to take place through the language of images, offering a fresh approach to power analysis and new opportunities for the exchange of ideas.

This workshop is open to all and no prior theater experience is necessary to participate. Pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Please write to toplab@toplab.org to let us know that you will be attending.

Tuition—sliding scale: $95-$150

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12135&reset=1

***

Weekend of March 16-18 (date/time TBA)

TOPLAB at the Left Forum (at Pace University, near City Hall, New York City)

Theater of the Oppressed for Self-Organizing and Building Community: A Panel Discussion and Workshop

with Reg Flowers, Janet Gerson, Elia Gurna, Kayhan Irani, Marie-Claire Picher and Reka Polonyi

Theater of the Oppressed (TO) is a methodology and set of techniques that has its origins in thepopular education movement that developed in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s. It was founded by the late Augusto Boal (1931-2009) in the early 1970s and since then has been used around the world by activists and organizers fighting against oppression in all its forms as a tool to help mobilize communities in struggle. In the United States context, TO has been successfully applied in immigrant rights organizing, in anti-racism education, in community leadership training, and in many other projects and endeavors that are striving for social justice and radical change. Most recently, people involved inOccupy Wall Street collaborated with the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) to apply TO techniques within that project; this collaboration is ongoing. In this panel, the presenters—all long-time TO practitioners—will talk about how they and the communities and constituencies with whom they have worked applied TO techniques to build solidarity, a sense of community, and a greater level of engagement with people who are actively working for social transformation.

at Pace University, near City Hall
New York City

more info at http://www.leftforum.org

***

Saturday, March 24 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Sunday, March 25 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Newspaper Theater

a two-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

In his book Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics, Augusto Boal (1931-2009) explains how certain circumstances, both social and political, "signaled the necessity to create a new category of popular theatre, in which the people—the people themselves—would make the theatre rather than simply receiving it as consumers." This Theater of the Oppressed technique will examine the theory, form, and practice of Newspaper Theater and invite participants to develop their own presentations through hands-on, dialogic group exercises. Beginning with a series of games and moving through a sequence of techniques, participants will come away from this workshop with a toolbox to bring Newspaper Theater into any community or classroom with participants of all ages. The examination of current events is central to this workshop, so participants will be asked to come prepared with recent news articles regarding themes and issues they are interested in addressing. Sources can be any form of media—newspaper, radio broadcast, magazine, television report, internet source, etc. It will be helpful to have a hard copy of the text in the workshops. (It will also be helpful for participants to read the final section of the text, Legislative Theater, with special focus on the fourth category of popular theater, Newspaper Theater, prior to the workshop.)

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12136&reset=1

***

Friday, March 30 at 7:30 pm

Un-Occupying the Spirit: A Report-Back on Theater and Solidarity in Afghanistan

a conversation with Kayhan Irani

In 2010 and 2011 Kayhan Irani, playwright and Theater of the Oppressed facilitator, worked in Afghanistan using Theater of the Oppressed with Afghan Education Projects, a media-for-development organization. She will report back on the process of building networks of trust and solidarity with Afghan theater workers and the challenges in movement building inside an occupied country.

Afghan artists have made the decision to go towards creativity, to innovate, to believe. That, in and of itself, is a huge challenge to oppression, hopelessness, and cynicism. However, how can they create links of solidarity in a country torn apart by war and occupation, which exploits ethnic rivalries? How can artists build a consciousness of solidarity in a development field dominated by imperialist funding mandates? Can movement building happen within an occupied space?

Admission—sliding scale: $6/$10/$15

Reserve online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12137&reset=1

***

Saturday, April 21 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

The Politics of the Theater of the Oppressed

a one-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

This workshop is an outgrowth of a collaboration and some recent conversations that took place between Julian Boal, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) facilitator Marie-Claire Picherand other members of TOPLAB. When it first originated in Brazil in the late 1960s and early 1970s,Theater of the Oppressed (TO) was a political and theatrical project that sought to work with oppressed people and communities toward their own self-emancipation and to change society and abolish the class structure that is the underpinning of capitalism. Today, a good amount of the radical political thrust and focus that motivated and informed TO as it was originally conceived and formulated is lost in much of its current practice. This workshop will attempt to return to the political, pedagogical and theatrical roots that are central to the theory and praxis of Theater of the Oppressed. With the surging popularity of "reality TV" and "interactive art" produced by corporate edict, the accelerated commodification of culture and its ongoing recuperation by capital, once-genuine participation in daily social life has too often become nothing more than a fashionable, radically-chic presentation (and consumption) of culture; in the case of TO, such presentation compromises the radical sensibility that is at its core and turns it into a poorly-disguised form of interactive manipulation.

Tuition—sliding scale: $45-$75

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12138&reset=1

***

Saturday, April 28 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Sunday, April 29 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Cop-in-the-Head

a two-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

Cop-in-the-Head is a collection of Theater of the Oppressed techniques that uses games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized forms of oppression, and explore power relations and collective solutions to concrete problems. This is a method and set of techniques that is especially useful for teachers and educators who work with disadvantaged populations, social workers, psychologists and mental health professionals, and community activists and organizers who are involved with marginalized constituencies and constituencies which have traditionally been the victims of bias and discrimination.

Tuition—sliding scale: $95-$150

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12142&reset=1

***

Saturday, May 26 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm,

Sunday, May 27 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Monday, May 28 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Invisible Theater

a three-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

Invisible Theater is one of the techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed, in which "actors" create "theatrical" situations in public places, but where the public does not realize that a performance is unfolding before them. The idea is to engage people in dialogue around social issues and ultimately provoke them into taking some kind of action on the issue. Invisible Theater can be "performed" anywhere—in city streets, in restaurants, on public transportation, etc. It is a type of guerrilla theater, and has been used by political activists all over the world around numerous issues big and small, local and global.

As part of the workshop, participants will develop pieces and "perform" them in public places in lower Manhattan.

Tuition—sliding scale: $135-$175

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12143&reset=1

***

Friday, June 22 from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm,

Saturday, June 23 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, and

Sunday, June 24 from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm

Forum Theater

a three-day workshop

facilitated by Kayhan Irani and Marie-Claire Picher

This weekend workshop focuses on exercises, games, and improvised scene work from the Theater of the Oppressed repertory developed by Brazilian director, popular educator and Workers Party activistAugusto Boal. Boal's interactive approach to theatrical expression emphasizes physical dialogues, non-verbal imagery, consensus-building and problem-solving processes, and techniques for developing awareness of both external and internalized forms of oppression.

An innovative approach to public forums, Forum Theater is rooted in the Brazilian popular education and culture movements of the 1950s and 1960s. It is designed for use in schools, community centers, trade unions, and political, solidarity and grassroots organizations. It is especially useful as an organizing tool in protest movements and movements for social justice and radical social transformation. Workshop participants (the actors) are asked to tell a story, taken from daily life, containing a political or social problem of difficult solution. A skit presenting that problem is improvised and presented. The original solution proposed by the protagonist must contain at least one social or political error.

When the skit is over, the audience discusses the proposed solution, and then the scene is performed once more. But now, audience members are urged to intervene by stopping the action, coming on stage to replace actors, and enacting their own ideas. Thus, instead of remaining passive, the audience becomes active "spect-actors" who now create alternative solutions and control the dramatic action. The aim of the forum is not to find an ideal solution, but to invent new ways of confronting oppression. In Brazil and other parts of Latin America, as well as in India and Africa, Forum Theater has been used with peasant and worker "audiences" as training in labor and community organizing and participatory democracy.

Tuition—sliding scale: $105-$165

(Active-duty military, recent veterans: $1.00)

Register online:

http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12144&reset=1

***

Facilitator Biographies

Kayhan Irani, who recently returned from Afghanistan, is an artivist and and a writer, director, performer and facilitator. In 2010 she won a New York Emmy award for best writing for We Are New York a 9-episode broadcast TV drama and English language learning and civic engagement tool for immigrant New Yorkers. Her acclaimed one-woman show, We’ve Come Undone, which tells the stories of immigrant women post 9/11, has toured nationally and internationally. She is a Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB) facilitator and leads workshops for diverse organizations and institutions on a local, national, and international level—traveling as far as Kabul, Afghanistan (2010 and 2011) and Baghdad, Iraq (2004) to use theater for change. She has led theater programs for community groups, public schools, juvenile detention facilities, government agencies, and with the general public. Kayhan has co-edited a volume of essays entitled Telling Stories to Change the World: Global Voices on the Power of Stories to Build Community and Make Social Justice Claims (Routledge, May 2008), about projects around the world that use storytelling as a way of creating social justice. Kayhan is a member of the Dramatists’ Guild.

Marie-Claire Picher is a co-founder (1990) of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB)and has worked and collaborated closely with Augusto Boal until his death in 2009. One of the most experienced Theater of the Oppressed practitioners in North America, she has presented thousands of hours of TO facilitation training in New York and throughout the United States, as well as in Chiapas, Tabasco, Mexico City, Guatemala and Cuba.

***

"The Marxist poetics of Bertolt Brecht does not stand opposed to one or another formal aspect of the Hegelian idealist poetics but rather denies its very essence, asserting that the character is not absolute subject but the object of economic or social forces to which he responds and in virtue of which he acts...

"In Brecht's objection [to idealist poetics], as well as in any other Marxist objection, what is at stake is who, or which term, precedes the other: the subjective or the objective. For idealist poetics, social thought conditions social being; for Marxist poetics, social being conditions social thought. In Hegel's view, the spirit creates the dramatic action; for Brecht, the character's social relations create the dramatic action....

"Brecht was a Marxist; therefore, for him, a theatrical work cannot end in repose, in equilibrium. It must, on the contrary, show the ways in which society loses its equilibrium, which way society is moving, and how to hasten that transition.

"Brecht contends that the popular artist must abandon the downtown stages and go to the neighborhoods, because only there will he find people who are truly interested in changing society: in the neighborhoods he should show his images of social life to the workers who are interested in changing that social life, since they are its victims. A theater that attempts to change the changers of society cannot lead to repose, cannot re-establish equilibrium. The bourgeois police tries to re-establish equilibrium, to enforce repose: a Marxist artist, on the other hand, must promote the movement toward national liberation and toward the liberation of classes oppressed by capital...[Hegel and Aristotle] desire a quiet somnolence at the end of the spectacle; Brecht wants the theatrical spectacle to be the beginning of action: the equilibrium should be sought by transforming society, and not by purging the individual of his just demands and needs....

"I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups should transfer to the people the means of production in the theater so that the people themselves may utilize them. The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it." —Augusto Boal (1931-2009),The Theater of the Oppressed