Theatre of the Oppressed

“The first difficulty that we face in order to understand correctly the workings of tragedy according to Aristotle stems from the very definition which that philosopher gives of art.”

Boal skillfully and succinctly utilizes the structure and form of traditional Western philosophical texts to turn their methodologies back upon themselves. He intentionally employs the very structures that he is critiquing, and this ironic stylistic choice reflects his important political response to systems of power. To set the stage for Boal’s own innovative approach to modern theater, Chapters 1-3 trace the historical evolution of philosophical thought about the relationship between art and power, beginning with Aristotle.

“Therefore, what did ‘imitate’ mean for Aristotle? To recreate that internal movement of things toward their perfection.”

In this sentence, Boal takes two important assertions and corrections. First, he explains that Aristotle’s ideas about the nature of forms as an eternal reaching toward perfection is an extension of Zeno’s Paradox. By making this connection, Boal shows that Aristotle’s later construction of art as separate from politics is rooted in the disparate approach to thinking—rather than the systems approach, which has largely driven Western thought and self-justification. Boal explains that Aristotle does not reject the conclusions of earlier thinkers, although the Greek philosopher claims to do so. Instead, Boal sees Aristotle as embracing these earlier ideas by failing to realize that his own thinking is deeply impacted by his uncritically Western perspective. The very philosophy of individualized forms creates space for structures of power to run rampant. Boal establishes that this disparateness is a mythology built upon the idea that politics do not impact and are not impacted by other contexts. Additionally, Boal shows that Aristotle perceives art as an independent form that might aid a drive toward perfection but can never fully attain this lofty goal.

“The arts and sciences do not exist in isolation, without relation to each other, but on the contrary, are all interrelated according to the activity characteristic of each.”

Boal’s argument in this passage reflects a larger cultural protest movement in Brazil: one which drew from many cultures while simultaneously upending them to explore uniquely Brazilian themes. This collectivist approach challenged Western ideology of separatism and individualism, which remains deeply rooted in Aristotle’s work. Boal also applied the collectivist approach in the Joker system, highlighting Liberation through Participation and melding audiences and actors into a shared experience.

“This leads us to accept as ‘just’ the already existing inequalities. For Aristotle, therefore, justice is already contained in reality itself as it is.”

Boal emphasizes Aristotle’s Western perspective and explores the ways in which it shaped the Greek philosopher’s ideologies about art. Because Aristotle failed to perceive the ways in which his privilege and perspective might introduce biases into his own philosophies, Boal argues that the Aristotle’s approach is built on a system of oppression and inequality. Therefore, it follows that the history of theater itself reveals The Interaction of Power and Art.

“Theater is change and not simple presentation of what exists: it is becoming and not being.”

This idea is bookended in Boal’s Chapter 5 critique of adhering too closely to realistic interpretations or notions of a perfect reality. He argues that the nature of reality is one of transition. For art to reflect reality, it must embrace reality’s shifting nature.

“The dominant art will always be that of the dominant class, since it is the only class that possesses the means to disseminate it.”

Boal explores many aspects of The Interaction of Power and Art, most notably the fact that the ruling classes are often responsible for funding theatrical productions and other forms of art. They do this by providing financial backing for the performances and by attending the productions themselves. By contrast, Boal’s model seeks to take performing arts to the masses, yanking it from the hands of the bourgeoisie. His work at the Arena Theater is an example of this endeavor, and he actively engages Brazilian playwrights to tell Brazilian stories.

“In tragedy, what was important for Aristotle was its cathartic function, its function as a ‘purifier’ of the citizen.”

Aristotle saw Theater as a Tool for Social and Political Change, but his model was constructed so that the values of the ruling class were maintained rather than subverted. Catharsis, or what Boal later refers to as empathy, occurs in the spectator.

“The bourgeois owed nothing to his fate or his good fortune, but only to his own virtú.”

Aristotle’s construction of theater centralizes virtues, while Machiavelli reinterpreted this idea to focus on the virtues—or virtú—of the ruling class. The traits associated with virtú were those that proved most useful in the maintenance and spread of power. Machiavelli’s play, The Mandrake, reflected this ideology. Through catharsis, spectators internalized the moral lessons of plays like The Mandrake to advance the positions of the ruling class.

“It is no surprise to find that one of the most typically Shakespearean themes is that of the seizing of power by someone who has no legal right to do so. Neither did the bourgeoisie have the ‘right’ to seize power, but it did it nevertheless.”

Here, Boal offers an example of The Interaction of Power and Art. The example of Shakespeare is one of many that illustrate the ways in which theater and art have been shaped to reflect the priorities and values of the ruling class. Because Shakespeare’s theater was funded by the monarchy, his plays reflected the imperialist values of his rulers. Spectators then absorbed the politicized lessons of these plays, thereby expanding and maintaining the power of the wealthy class.

“The bourgeoisie—because of its own condition as alienator of man—would not be the class most likely to give rise to human multidimensionality.”

In Boal’s approach to Theater as a Tool for Social and Political Change, the audience members become active participants in the production. Boal argues that theater by the ruling classes for the ruling classes can never give rise to liberation. However, in his view, theater by those who are oppressed for those who are oppressed helps to enact real change.

“Of all these Hegelian arguments, the one which most obviously characterizes his poetics is the one which insists on the character’s nature as subject; that is, the argument that all exterior actions have their origin in the character’s free spirit.”

As Boal examines the history of poetics, he notes a fundamental distinctions that separate Aristotle, Hegel, and Brecht. For both Aristotle and Hegel, the nature of the protagonist—the inherent self with both flaws and virtues—is the subject of the play. However, Brecht subverted this model, establishing as the subject those social and economic forces that contextualized the experiences of the character. Ultimately, Boal challenged all of these ideas by making the actions of the characters the subject—that is, their responses to power.

“The Marxist poetics of Bertolt Brecht does not stand opposed to one or another formal aspect of the Hegelian idealistic 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 he acts.”

Brecht’s ideas were highly influential to Boal’s work. By taking his art form away from the ruling classes and bringing it to other audiences, Brecht helped to transform the traditional Western model that had long dominated theaters. As a Marxist, Brecht built his theories around the central idea that systems of power shape people’s actions and identities.

“Galy Gay is not Galy Gay; he does not exist purely and simply. Galy Gay is not Galy Gay, but rather is everything that Galy Gay is capable of doing in particular situations.”

Galy Gay’s story helps to illustrate Brecht’s Marxist approach. Gay is not the subject of the play, nor is he capable of acting out against the powers that oppress him. Instead, he is merely a product of those forces. However, although Boal borrowed from Brecht, he also challenged the hopelessness of the German director’s model. Boal saw the action of the characters as the primary subject of the play, and those actions were driven by a new form of theater that featured Liberation through Participation.

“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 the transition.”

Once again, Boal juxtaposes his approach with the techniques of Brecht and others. Aristotle emphasizes that law and order must be restored at the end of the play, but Brecht proposes that a play should end in imbalance, highlighting the inequitable nature of society. However, Boal goes a step further by asserting that the art form should reflect reality, and that plays should have no endings because reality is in a constant state of transition. Rather than ending with the inequity at the forefront of his audiences’ minds, Boal wanted to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to challenge the oppressive forces in their personal lives.

“Its mechanism (sometimes insidious) consists in the juxtaposition of two people (one fictitious and another real), two universes, making one of those two people (the real one, the spectator) surrender to the other (the fictious one, the character) his power of making decisions. The man relinquishes his power of decision to the image.”

Here, Boal talks about empathy, or what Aristotle viewed as catharsis. Boal argues that The Interaction of Power and Art is foundational and that the very structure of a traditional theatrical model of spectators and actors helps to project this power imbalance. Like Brecht, Boal is critical of performances that seek to explicitly elicit or manipulate an emotional response from the audience. While he acknowledges that emotion is an important part of art, Boal also contends that any emotional response should not be coerced; instead, it should be a voluntary act from the individual spectator, who has engaged in a moment of learning.

“By learning a new language, a person acquires a new way of knowing reality and of passing that knowledge on to others.”

Boal’s work with a national literacy program in Brazil helped to shape his ideas about Theater as a Tool for Social and Political Change, as well as his unique artistic philosophy. After seeing that photography might be used as a form of literacy, Boal began to ask how theater could be used in the same way—as a vehicle of expression for both actors and audiences.

“The poetics of the oppressed focuses on the action itself: the spectator delegates no power to the character (or actor) either to act or to think in his place; on the contrary, he himself assumes the protagonic role changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change.”

This sentence clarifies the ways in which Boal’s expression of theater is different from those of his predecessors. Unlike Brecht, who still maintained the same line of distinction between actors and spectators, Boal invited the audience to take on the role of protagonist by helping to shape the actions of the characters themselves.

“In our culture we are used to expressing everything through words, leaving the enormous expressive capabilities of the body in an underdeveloped state.”

Many of Boal’s techniques emerged as he was working for a national project to promote literacy in Brazil. By focusing on the body, Boal was able to bring performance arts to people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. This inclusive approach mirrored the work of his colleagues, which emphasized multiple forms of literacy.

“The theatrical rituals are abolished; only the theater exists, without its old, worn-out patterns. The theatrical energy is completely liberated, and the impact produced by this free theater is much more powerful and longer lasting.”

Through the process of the Joker system, the audience experiences Liberation through Participation. The Joker mediates between the audience and the actors, offering interpretations and translating suggestions to the actors. Boal sees this as a return to the origin of theater: one that is free from the constraints of power.

“The poetics of Aristotle is the poetics of oppression: the world is known, perfect or about to be perfected.”

Aristotle based his model of theater on the idea that art seeks to perfect nature, and he also assumed that perfection is something that already exists through political good. For this reason, plays were presented as final, and the conclusion of each play was designed to restore law and equilibrium. Boal argues that this very construction is steeped in oppression. By securing an ending that delivers a sense of equilibrium, the play does not engage audiences in asking critical questions or seeking transformation.

“It was a long period during which the Arena Theater closed its doors to European playwrights, regardless of their high quality, opening them to anyone who wished to talk about Brazil to a Brazilian audience.”

The Arena Theater played a powerful part in Boal’s development of the Joker system. Although censorship inhibited the trends of theater in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s and emphasized classical retellings, the Arena Theater sought to highlight Brazilian voices. To this end, plays were reimagined to explore themes and experiences relevant to Brazilian audiences, and Brazilian playwrights and audiences both took an active role in reshaping the narrative.

“The power, in that tale, is symbolized by Lucrezia, the young wife kept under lock and key but, even so still accessible to anyone who wants her and will fight for her.”

In this passage, Boal once again considers Machiavelli’s play, La Mandragola, or The Mandrake. Boal directed a version of Machiavelli’s play at the Arena Theater, using its plot to interrogate themes of power and oppression and to reshape Lucrezia’s character arc. In Boal’s innovative production, audiences gained the freedom to explore The Interaction of Power and Art in a new way, and they were able to assert their own wills over the actions of the characters.

“Art is a form of knowledge: the artist, therefore, has the obligation of interpreting reality, making it understandable. But if instead of interpreting, he limits himself to reproducing it, he will be failing to comprehend it or to make it comprehensible.”

In this passage, Boal critiques both Aristotle and the Arena Theater for making different versions of the same mistake. Aristotle saw art as the movement toward a perfect form through the reproduction of a perfect reality. The Arena Theater, in an effort to move away from classical forms of theater, began to highlight realistic performances. While Boal approved of the theater’s choice, he cautions that adhering to reality too closely, without providing an opportunity for transition, is a fundamental error.