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Theatre_of_the_Oppressed_as_a_Political
Theatre_of_the_Oppressed_as_a_Political
Theatre_of_the_Oppressed_as_a_Political
Boal’s approach undoubtedly echoes Marx and Engels’ criticism of ‘the exclusive concentration of
artistic talent in particular individuals, and its suppression in the broad mass which is bound up with
this’, presenting this phenomenon as ‘a consequence of division of labour.[15] Hence, as a method,
TO is not aimed at ‘bringing out the artist in all of us’. It is a matter of breaking down the barriers
between social functions and not to confine individuals to a single activity that entirely defines and
encloses them. That is the underlying reason why the spectator’s position has to be completely re-
evaluated: ‘He too must be a subject, an actor on an equal plane with those generally accepted as
actors, who must also be spectators’.[16] To emphasize this break from the traditional spectator –
whose position enacts oppressive social relations – Boal coined the term spect-actors.[17]
In this way, TO’s techniques have an important role in a revolutionary movement: firstly as a means
of raising political consciousness, but also enabling strategic development by creating a space and
set of practices that rehearse the very political acts implied by a revolutionary transformation. The
space of the stage provides an environment in which actors from oppressed groups can train and to
elaborate collectively actions they plans to implement politically. For example, Boal cites the case
of a group of Peruvian workers who used TO’s techniques to rehearse different actions aimed at
compelling their boss to improve their work conditions, evaluating the feasibility and the risk
inherent to each course of action.[20]
Paulo Freire used to characterize his pedagogy as ‘praxis’. Following Marx and Engels, human
beings are determined by the social reality of their existing conditions but, they also transform this
latter according to their needs. As Pierre Macherey writes it: ‘Praxis is what expresses a relationship
to the world that is not purely passive.[21] Praxis deals with the performative action of human
beings on their environment in order to transform their existing conditions. As such, in the vein of
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, TO should be regarded as praxis too.
However, praxis can also be understood in another way specifically tied to language, quite relevant
for practises binding literacy and theatrical expression to conscientization. As Marx and Engels
wrote: ‘language is practical consciousness[22]’. In the poetics of the oppressed, theatre is
conceived as a language and, as such, it might help emerging critical consciousness. The linguist
Jean-Jacques Lecercle explains praxis by referring to Aristotle, defining it as a ‘common action’.
Yet, the political is closely related to language as, according to Aristotle, men are political animals
since they have the power to speak. So we can borrow Lecercle’s formula to claim that in Freire’s
literacy program or in Boal’s approach of Theatre: ‘language is a form of praxis: it is the medium of
political action[23]’. Then theatre as language becomes discourse, position statement and the
strategic development of concrete intervention on the world. In theatre, speech cannot be separated
from the body’s involvement: speaking is acting and the body’s involvement is a language. That is
why, in one of his rare direct references to Marx, Boal allows himself concerns the eleventh thesis
on Feuerbach that he appropriates to fit his purposes:
Marx said something like: enough! A philosophy interpreting the world. Reality must be
changed. Marx might have said something similar concerning Theatre. We need a
Theatre that helps us to change reality. Not only that helps changing the spectator’s
consciousness. The spectator who will transform his reality will do so with his body.
That is, a revolution, a struggle against different kinds of oppressions…. One plays with
consciousness, one plays with the body.[24]