What Is the Theater of the Oppressed? by Marie-Claire Picher "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, The Theater of the Oppressed The Theater of the Oppressed, established in the early 1970s
by Brazilian director and Workers' Party (PT) activist
Augusto Boal, is a form of popular theater, of, by, and for
people engaged in the struggle for liberation. More
specifically, it is a rehearsal theater designed for people
who want to learn ways of fighting back against oppression
in their daily lives. In the Theater of the Oppressed,
oppression is defined, in part, as a power dynamic based on
monologue rather than dialogue; a relation of domination and
command that prohibits the oppressed from being who they are
and from exercising their basic human rights. Accordingly,
the Theater of the Oppressed is a participatory theater that
fosters democratic and cooperative forms of interaction
among participants. Theater is emphasized not as a spectacle
but rather as a language designed to: 1) analyze and discuss
problems of oppression and power; and 2) explore group
solutions to these problems. This language is accessible to all.Bridging the separation between actor (the one who acts) and
spectator (the one who observes but is not permitted to
intervene in the theatrical situation), the Theater of the
Oppressed is practiced by "spect-actors" who have the
opportunity to both act and observe, and who engage in
self-empowering processes of dialogue that help foster
critical thinking. The theatrical act is thus experienced as
conscious intervention, as a rehearsal for social action
rooted in a collective analysis of shared problems of
oppression. This particular type of interactive theater is
rooted in the pedagogical and political principles specific
to the popular education method developed by Brazilian
educator Paulo Freire: 1) to see the situation lived by the
participants; 2) to analyze the root causes of the
situation; and 3) to act to change the situation following
the precepts of social justice.Augusto Boal Augusto Boal is a political activist and major innovator of
post-Brechtian theater. He served as Artistic Director of
the Arena Theater in Sao Paulo from 1956 to 1971. In the
1970s, he came under attack by the Brazilian government,
resulting in his imprisonment, torture and subsequent exile.
Boal has lectured, conducted workshops, and mounted
productions throughout North and South America, Europe,
India and Africa, and has written a number of books,
including Theater of the Oppressed, Games for Actors
and Non-Actors, and The Rainbow of Desire An activist in
the Brazilian Workers' Party (PT), he presently resides in Rio
de Janeiro. In 1992, he was elected to the City Council of
Rio, a post he held for four years. Once installed in office,
he adapted his theater techniques for use in city politics,
with some hilarious--and sometimes rancorous--results.
Members of the Center for the Theater of the Oppressed
became Boal's City Council staff, and created seventeen
companies of players practicing "Legislative Theater"
throughout the city.The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory The purpose of the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory,
founded in New York City in July 1990, is to provide a forum
for the practice, performance and dissemination of the
techniques of the Theater of the Oppressed. TOPLAB is a
group of educators, cultural and political activists and
artists whose work is based on extensive training and
collaboration with Augusto Boal since its founding. TOPLAB
conducts on-site training workshops on theater as an
organizing tool for activists in neighborhood, labor, peace,
human rights, youth and community-based organizations. We
work with educators, human service and mental health
workers, union organizers, and community activists who are
interested in using interactive theater as a tool for
analyzing and exploring solutions to problems of oppression
and power that arise in the workplace, school, and community
problems connected to AIDS, substance abuse, family
violence, homelessness, unemployment, racism and sexism.Just as the principal goal of popular education is to change
the power relations in our society and to create mechanisms
of collective power over all the structures of society, so
too the principal goal of the Laboratory is to help groups
explore and transform power relations of domination and
subjugation that give rise to oppression. Within this
learning process: 1) all participants are learners; 2) all
participate in and contribute equally to the production of
knowledge, which is a continuous dialogue; 3) the learners
are the subject and not the object of the process; 4) the
objective of the process is to liberate participants from
both internal and external oppression, so as to make them
capable of changing their reality, their lives, and the
society they live in.Since 1990, through the auspices of The Brecht Forum,
the Laboratory has initiated and organized intensive
workshops led by Augusto Boal in New York City. It
has also planned and led more than two hundred public
training workshops in the techniques of the Theater of the
Oppressed. In this capacity, the Laboratory has brought
together people from diverse backgrounds, occupations, and
organizations, and functioned as a resource, information,
and networking center serving individuals and groups
interested in theater for social change.The purpose of TOPLAB is to provide a forum for the
practice, performance and dissemination of the techniques of
the Theater of the Oppressed. The constituencies we work
with are interested in using interactive theater as an
organizing tool to analyze, and explore solutions to, problems
of oppression and power that arise in the workplace,
school and community--problems connected to racism,
sexism, unemployment, homelessness, family violence,
AIDS, substance abuse, among others.The problem directly addressed by TOPLAB is one that
underlies the very process of organizing for democratic
social change: the relationship of means to end. The way
people conceive of a specific problem--how they see
themselves within it, how they interact with others who
share similar oppressions, and how they organize (or not
organize) to propose and achieve solutions, is part of the
problem itself. In other words, the nature of group
process--specifically, the need to establish democratic
group process as the means to achieving participatory
democracy--needs to be addressed. One of the challenges of
organizing, for example, is that marginalized people often
lack confidence in their own thinking and ability to
strategize, and therefore look to organizers for answers,
and due to expediency, they may not find within the group
the necessary support structures for developing strong
leadership skills. Thus, despite meaningful victories the
group may be able to achieve by following the lead of the
organizer, this dynamic perpetuates long-term dependency and
disempowerment.Therefore, just as the principal goal of popular education
is to change the power relations in our society and to
create mechanisms of collective power over the structures of
society, so too the principal goal of the Theater of the
Oppressed Laboratory is to help groups, within the context
of a democratic learning process, confront and transform
power relations of domination and subjugation that give rise
to oppression. Within this learning process: 1) all
participants are learners; 2) all participate in and
contribute equally to the production of knowledge, which is
a continuous dialogue; 3) the learners are the subject and
not the object of the process; 4) the objective of the
process is to liberate participants from both internal and
external oppression, so as to make them capable of changing
their reality, their lives and the society they live in.The Laboratory has given workshops in the New York City
public schools, and at colleges and universities in New York
and elsewhere, and has developed and conducted on-site
workshops with different community organizations to explore
problems specific to their particular work: the role of the
arts in the struggle against racism, at the North Star
Conference; building solidarity among women, at the Urban
Pathways/Travelers Hotel Women's Shelter; AIDS prevention,
with the Shaman Theater-Pregones-ASPIRA coalition; and
promoting health among homeless people with HIV/AIDS, at the
Foundation for Research on Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
The Laboratory also led a workshop at the April 1995
teach-in in New York, "Out from under the Bell Curve: A
Teach-in on Confronting Right-wing Ideology and Social
Policy," and presents workshops each year at the annual
Socialist Scholars Conference held in New York City. Members
of the Laboratory attended the International Festivals of
the Theater of the Oppressed held in France in 1991 and in
Rio de Janeiro in 1993, strengthening relations with theater
activists from twenty-two different countries, while
planning the creation of an International Association of the
Theater of the Oppressed.The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory has presented
workshops in indigenous communities of the Los Altos and Las
Canadas regions of the Mexican state of Chiapas, and worked
with the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in the cities
of Comitan and San Cristobal, offering training workshops
for social justice workers and educators. Other work in
Mexico included training peace and social activists who were
part of a youth community in the state of Tabasco, and with
street children in Mexico City, and peace and solidarity
groups based in the capital. TOPLAB was also a participant
in the International Festival of Alternative Theater
(Reunion Internacional de Especialistas en Teatro
Alternativa), held in Mexico City in 1997.TOPLAB has also presented workshops in El Quiche, Guatemala
in conjunction with Caritas for health and literacy educators,
women's rights groups, and community organizers, and in
an alcoholism treatment center, working with both clients
and recovery professionals, and presented a
staff-development workshop in Guatemala City for
psychologists and teachers of at-risk pupils.In addition to targeted training workshops, TOPLAB members
have worked in various street theater projects around the
themes of globalization, neoliberalism and international
solidarity, and to protest United States aggression in Iraq
and the Balkans.The Laboratory also gives advice and support to individuals
and groups who use the techniques of the Theater of the
Oppressed in their particular field (education, social work,
community organizing, the arts). The Images Theater
Collective, for instance, grew out of the meetings and study
sessions led by the Laboratory on the political potential of
interactive theater. In 1992, as part of the movement to
counter the official Columbus Quincentennial celebrations,
the Collective wrote and performed a play, based on Image
Theater techniques, on colonial oppression and resistance in
Latin America. In addition, as a result of Laboratory activity,
Theater of the Oppressed theory and techniques have been
integrated into the basic curriculum of both the Puerto Rican
Traveling Theatre Training Unit and the Education Program
of the Latino Experimental Fantastic Theater. Finally, in
1993, the Laboratory became an independent affiliate of
the Institute for Popular Education at The Brecht Forum,
established to promote the Paulo Freire approach to
popular education.TOPLAB will neither facilitate workshops for, nor accept
funding from for-profit corporations and similar enterprises.***** "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
The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory
can be contacted at
c/o The Brecht Forum
122 West 27 Street 10 floor
New York, New York 10001
Phone (212) 924-1858; fax (212) 674-6506
http://www.toplab.org