Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) was developed by Brazilian visionary Augusto Boal (1931-2009), and represents a form of popular, community-based education which uses theatre as a tool for social change on individual, local and global level. Techniques are used in over 100 countries for social and political activism, conflict resolution, community building, therapy, rehabilitation and advocacy and influence on government legislation. Designed for non-actors, it uses the universal language of theatre as a springboard for people and whole communities to investigate their lives, identify their dreams, and reinvent their future. Not a soapbox, T.O. invites critical thinking and dialogue. It is about analyzing rather than giving answers. It is also about "acting" (taking action) rather than just talking.
ABOUT AUGUSTO BOAL AND EMERGENCE OF THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED
Augusto Boal (1931 - 2009), a Brazilian theatre director, playwright and politician, in the fifties of the last century, during the Brazilian military dictatorship, began to develop specific theatrical techniques, known as Theatre of the oppressed, with which the actors intolerant spread socially critical message. The then regime did not allow public expression of opinion and thought for civilian population, so Boal transferred theatre into everyday life and into everyday people to point out, that they can also actively influence the socio-political developments. Boal developed a variety of techniques - all based on the interaction between spectators and players - under the influence of Paulo Freire and introduced them very early in the European space. He then set up Theatre of the oppressed in all continents around the world and taught it until his death in 2009.
In the beginning Boal used especially the technique of spontaneous dramaturgy, where the audience can suspend players at any point during the performance, usually when there is a scene of oppression. The audience may propose any resolution of the play, and they usually draw from their own (negative, oppressed) experience. With this Boal also wanted to restructure the basic form of classical theatre, where actors symbolically overpower audiences, and are sort of a metaphor for a reigning, active class, while viewers are just passive objects, who over the course of the performance and its end do not have overview or influence. Through theatrical techniques Boal wants to encourage people for active citizenship, for an active political and social participation and for the belief that social changes can also affect apparently politically weak and insignificant players.
ABOUT ACTORS
JOKER//MEDIATOR/FACILITATOR
SPECT-ACTORS
This is a term created by Augusto Boal, and with it he described the specific change in the role of the spectator, who in the Theatre of the Oppressed is not just a spectator, but also an actor. 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.
Boal has insisted from the very beginning that the audience has to activate. In the classical theatre, only actors have an active role ant thus symbolically represent the ruling class, those who govern and decide on the course, outcome, etc.. Viewers have symbolized the passive crowd, helpless victims of political manipulation. In contrast, Boal believed that even the spectators can be actively involved in both the performance and in the process of social change.
ABOUT METHODS AND TECHNIQUES
The methods are based on the language of theatre and the aesthetic space, with the intention to stimulate interaction of participants. Selected theatrical techniques offer a tool for the analysis of social conflicts, raising awareness of global topics, enhancing teaching skills that work for change, to equip trainers with the techniques, simple to use and work in the community; creating motivation for structural local-global social change and offer tools for concretise wishes and demands, to develop an attractive and active form of theatre, which includes large numbers of people.
- Simultaneous dramaturgy
It is the technique where amidst the middle of a theatrical work, the actors on stage will stop the play and ask the audience for solutions to their situation. The audience will voice their opinion toward a solution. This technique activates the spectators and sets them from a calm and comfortable armchair into a thinking position. The audience gets the power of steering the performance, and the actor's main feature is to create and maintain a quality dialogue with it. With this the spectators get momentum and incentive that their own activism can also affect the socio-political life of their surroundings.
- Image theatre
Participants form their body and put them in poses representing individual emotions, events, negative memories. Boal believes that this technique works therapeutically for all participants, both on individual as well as on group level. Mimicry and gestures of our body don’t filter out thoughts like we can through speech. However, image theatre works dialectically, the participants can correct one another until in the body and cleaned sculptures they find a common consensus. Through the body we can express different feelings in a different way; each word has denotation, which is common to most people, but at the level of connotations – which by most participants is expressed through the body – they are different. Boal makes an example with a hug, a word that means to put hands over someone’s shoulder, but can in fact by every individual in every situation be understood differently: as a strong, subtle, confusing, unpleasant, etc..
- Forum theatre
The forum theatre technique in some way naturally builds on the simultaneous dramaturgy technique, but includes actors who were or still are really oppressed. Through it the role of spect-actor has developed. Forum is commonly used in political theatre, in which the spectators not only imagine the changes, but they also have the opportunity to actively influence them, collectively reflect repression and through the process they become mature to engage in real social action. Users of techniques are usually oppressed and discriminated against individuals and their communities, but they act on a planned play, a scenario drawn up in advance; chosen theme should therefore be relevant to a specific audience selected. As with spontaneous dramaturgy the Forum technique also has two levels: first an actor plays a particular situation where the end of the play is negative for the oppressed individuals or group. Then the game is repeated, and participants can at any time suspend the actor and propose a different extension. Boal says that the purpose of this technique is not really searching for the right way and find solutions, but a better understanding of the overall situation, reason and the way of oppression, the role and power of the oppressed, etc.. Participants in the show and their activism in it experience even stronger, because in real life they struggle with the presented type of oppression.
- Newspaper theatre
A group of techniques, which focuses on daily newspapers. The most popular are:
* Simple Reading: news item read, detached from the context of the newspaper (which makes it false or controversial).
* 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 (musical), 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 it's visual complement.
* Improvisation: news is improvised on stage to exploit all it's 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.
- Invisible theatre
It is a technique of pre-prepared content and the play, taking place in public space, but without prior knowledge of the audience. The play exposes the theme of social injustice in a way that provokes passers-by. Although the scenario is known in advance to the actors, they must improvise, which is required by interaction with passersby. Actors take the role of the oppressed or those who oppress and, often, the role of "passersby", who - as completely unintentional – get included in the play with loud comments, opposition or agreement. This way they encourage the inclusion of "real" passersby. This technique has often activist character.
- Breaking repression
Through this method, participants recall specific moments when they experienced oppression, when they feel discriminated against, when they accepted this role and therefore reacted contrary to their feelings. Specific of this technique is a focus on the individual, completely subjective moment of oppression. One of the participants describe the event, others reconstruct it and reflect upon it, and then play a story in which the participants are oppressors, and the selected candidate must resist them and fight them.
- Analytical theatre
A selected spectator tells a story in which he was oppressed; an actor improvises the story simultaneously. In the continuation the story is fragmented, it is attributed various social roles, and participants must find them a concrete physical object that it symbolizes. Egg. wallet as a symbolic object for the head of the family, financial provider. Through this method, participants learn that one's actions are not solely the result of human psychology, but also the social context in which they live (egg. class, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.).
- Rituals and masks
Participants reveal the ideological structure of rituals, trough which specific interpersonal relations, social hierarchies and relations of power are manifested. With masks the actors reflect the behavioural patterns, that individuals must accept everyday life through various rituals, which are determined by their social role. This technique emphasizes the diversity of meanings of the same ritual for people from different classes.
- Legislative theatre
The technique was created, when Boal was a member of the City Council and is based on the voices of voters, who get the opportunity for an open dialogue between them as citizens, and official institutions or cities’ political entities. Boal called this approach also a transitional democracy, a similar technique is forum theatre, but the focus is solely on the specific changes in legislation (not the general social change as with the forum). During Boal mandate about twenty laws were modified in this way, and the technique was later used in Canada and Great Britain.
- Rainbow of Desire
Rainbow theatrical techniques do not focus on social oppression, but the individual’s individual traumas and negative past experiences. The technique is used for therapeutic purposes and is an upgrade of the image theatre.