Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theater artist, director, playwright, and theorist who claimed that theater can be used as a weapon for liberation. His approach to theater, which he called “Theater of the Oppressed,” has influenced many artists and activists around the world.
Boal created a series of techniques to empower people to use theater as a language like the spoken and written word. Boal believed that people are used to the theatrical in daily life, through a particular use of gestures, body movements, costumes, and voice. Boal claimed that every human being is theater but a series of social conditionings and theaters of oppression block people from accessing their own creativity.
According to Boal, traditional theater relies on the passivity of spectators: the characters perform for spectators, not only for their entertainment but also in their place, so that spectators do not have to act. This means, that conflict is dealt with on stage and, according to Boal, even in Brechtian theater, in which the audience is made to reflect on the characters’ actions, theater do not foster audience’s response in real-world scenarios. Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed is meant to make theater accessible to people, or to give theater back to the people so that they use theater not for catharsis or critical analysis but as “a rehearsal for revolution”.
Boal developed ways for people to discuss issues that affected them, but, instead of using speech, he encouraged them to “speak in theater.”
For example, in Boal’s “Forum Theater” participants stage a situation of oppression and explore different options that the characters can make to break free from these situations. This is based on a central feature of Boal’s approach to theater: that there is no split between actors and spectators, and that all who participate are “spect-actors.”
Active participants, or spect-actors, offer their solutions to the oppressive situation that is being analyzed by directly engaging in the scene. Boal used this methodology during his tenure as a city councilman in Río de Janeiro, and he transformed this experience into a new category of his Theater of the Oppressed: “Legislative Theater.” The objective of this theater was to submit proposed laws to the consideration of the population as well as to listen to citizens’ needs as they were performed in real life scenarios. Thirteen laws passed following this process, which Boal called “transitive democracy,” a form of decision-making that draws from “direct democracy” and “representative democracy”.
“Invisible Theater,” a subcategory within the Theater of the Oppressed, involves performing in a public place for an audience who does not know that they are watching a rehearsed scene. The goal of this work is to bring attention to social behaviors and responses that are habitual but need critical consideration.
Performers such as Reverend Billy use Invisible Theater to illuminate aspects of our daily life that usually go unnoticed. Billy’s Shopping Invasions or Retail Interventions in Starbucks and Disney Stores are examples of Boal's Invisible Theater even though Billy's histrionics make it hard to believe that what he does can be considered a form of Invisible Theater.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS. WAYS OF READING THESE INTERVENTIONS IN RELATION TO BOAL'S WORK.
Ricardo Domínguez of the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) also acknowledges the influence of Boal's Invisible Theater on EDT's virtual sit-ins. To make online activism feel "real" Domínguez explains that he, as the organizer and facilitator of these online protests, has to stage the experience as a sort of invisible theater to make people "feel they are participating in the performance and have agency to expand the performance." (Coco Fusco, "On-Line Simulations/Real-Life Politics: A Discussion with Ricardo Dominguez on Staging Virtual Theatre," The Drama Review 47, 2 (T178), Summer 2003, p. 156).
Boal's actors performing Invisible Theater venture in the public arena with a set of rehearsed behaviors as provocations for people to react. They frame a strip of life as performance: the scene takes places in a particular place, at a specific time, and the actors know their script or their score. The audience participate but in a different way than the spect-actors of the Forum Theater; their (re)actions count but they are not aware of their options. They simply act in a conditioned way without examining why they do not do otherwise. Instead of discussing issues such as discrimination and apathy directly, practitioners of Invisible Theater make people aware (and hopefully critical) of their behavior after the fact.
Boal created a series of techniques to empower people to use theater as a language like the spoken and written word. Boal believed that people are used to the theatrical in daily life, through a particular use of gestures, body movements, costumes, and voice. Boal claimed that every human being is theater but a series of social conditionings and theaters of oppression block people from accessing their own creativity.
According to Boal, traditional theater relies on the passivity of spectators: the characters perform for spectators, not only for their entertainment but also in their place, so that spectators do not have to act. This means, that conflict is dealt with on stage and, according to Boal, even in Brechtian theater, in which the audience is made to reflect on the characters’ actions, theater do not foster audience’s response in real-world scenarios. Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed is meant to make theater accessible to people, or to give theater back to the people so that they use theater not for catharsis or critical analysis but as “a rehearsal for revolution”.
Boal developed ways for people to discuss issues that affected them, but, instead of using speech, he encouraged them to “speak in theater.”
For example, in Boal’s “Forum Theater” participants stage a situation of oppression and explore different options that the characters can make to break free from these situations. This is based on a central feature of Boal’s approach to theater: that there is no split between actors and spectators, and that all who participate are “spect-actors.”
Active participants, or spect-actors, offer their solutions to the oppressive situation that is being analyzed by directly engaging in the scene. Boal used this methodology during his tenure as a city councilman in Río de Janeiro, and he transformed this experience into a new category of his Theater of the Oppressed: “Legislative Theater.” The objective of this theater was to submit proposed laws to the consideration of the population as well as to listen to citizens’ needs as they were performed in real life scenarios. Thirteen laws passed following this process, which Boal called “transitive democracy,” a form of decision-making that draws from “direct democracy” and “representative democracy”.
“Invisible Theater,” a subcategory within the Theater of the Oppressed, involves performing in a public place for an audience who does not know that they are watching a rehearsed scene. The goal of this work is to bring attention to social behaviors and responses that are habitual but need critical consideration.
Performers such as Reverend Billy use Invisible Theater to illuminate aspects of our daily life that usually go unnoticed. Billy’s Shopping Invasions or Retail Interventions in Starbucks and Disney Stores are examples of Boal's Invisible Theater even though Billy's histrionics make it hard to believe that what he does can be considered a form of Invisible Theater.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS. WAYS OF READING THESE INTERVENTIONS IN RELATION TO BOAL'S WORK.
Ricardo Domínguez of the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) also acknowledges the influence of Boal's Invisible Theater on EDT's virtual sit-ins. To make online activism feel "real" Domínguez explains that he, as the organizer and facilitator of these online protests, has to stage the experience as a sort of invisible theater to make people "feel they are participating in the performance and have agency to expand the performance." (Coco Fusco, "On-Line Simulations/Real-Life Politics: A Discussion with Ricardo Dominguez on Staging Virtual Theatre," The Drama Review 47, 2 (T178), Summer 2003, p. 156).
Boal's actors performing Invisible Theater venture in the public arena with a set of rehearsed behaviors as provocations for people to react. They frame a strip of life as performance: the scene takes places in a particular place, at a specific time, and the actors know their script or their score. The audience participate but in a different way than the spect-actors of the Forum Theater; their (re)actions count but they are not aware of their options. They simply act in a conditioned way without examining why they do not do otherwise. Instead of discussing issues such as discrimination and apathy directly, practitioners of Invisible Theater make people aware (and hopefully critical) of their behavior after the fact.
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