Research paper on the perspective in world theatres

Theatre of the Oppressed

INTRODUCTION

© 2015 Joshua E. Polster. All Rights Reserved. No part of this work or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of the author.

Brazil

1964 Brazilian coup d'état •  1960 - Janio Quadros elected

president, but resigns after several months, plunging country into constitutional crisis. Succeeded by left-wing vice-president Joao Goulart.

•  1964 - Goulart ousted in bloodless coup by Military, flees into exile. Military rule associated with repression but also with rapid economic growth based on state-ownership of key sectors.

•  1974 - General Ernesto Geisel becomes president, introduces reforms which allow limited political activity and elections.

•  1982 - Brazil halts payment of its foreign debt, which is among world's biggest. •  1985 - Tancredo Neves elected first civilian president in 21 years under the

electoral college system set up by the military, but falls ill before he can be inaugurated and dies shortly afterwards. His vice president Jose Sarney becomes president at time of economic crisis.

Augusto Boal “Everyone can do theatre - even actors. And theatre can be done everywhere, even inside theatres” - Augusto Boal. •  Born in Rio de Janeiro, 1931

•  Influential Theatre Director, Writer/Theorist, and Politician.

•  Major international figure in the realms of theatre for social change, drama therapy, and drama in education.

•  Founder of The Theatre of the Oppressed

•  Advocates an anti-Aristotelian concept of theatre. Sees the spectator as an overly passive being and instead advocates the concept of the spect-actor, who can take part in the action and change it for a more socially acceptable outcome.

Augusto Boal •  Worked with the Arena Theatre in São Paulo,

in southeast Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s •  His experimental and highly political forms of

theatre got him in trouble with Humberto de Alencar Castello Branco’s military dictatorship in Brazil.

•  In 1971, he was arrested and tortured for four months and then forced into exile and spent 15 years in Argentina, Portugal and France before returning to Rio de Janero

•  Wrote Theatre of the Oppressed while in exile in Argentina. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

•  Moved to Paris and taught his revolutionary new methods of theatre for several years

•  Returned to Brazil, where he was eventually elected to municipal office, which he served from 1993-1996

•  Continued to teach and work with CTOs (Centers for Theaters of the Oppressed) on community based projects until his death in 2009.

Theatre of the Oppressed

•  A series of exercises and concepts meant to promote awareness of one’s social situation and it’s limitations, as well as social and individual attitudes and traditions imposed upon the body

•  Anti-Aristotelian

•  Politics are far more important than Aesthetics

•  Social change is the goal, with the performers acting out situations from their own communities

•  Rooted in Marxist philosophies

Marxism •  Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto (1848)

•  Dialectical historical materialism

•  Proletarian triumphs and a classless society is established

•  Materialist view of history: Historical change is not created by great men or great ideas, but by changes in the economic substructure (base)

Marxism Superstructure: Culture (art, literature, philosophy, myth,

ideology - ideology connects or hides its connection to the substructure)

Social order, class relations, political system Substructure: Economic order: division of labor, property

ownership, production/consumption

Ideology

•  Ideology is a system of representations (images, myths, ideas, stories, character) endowed with existence and a historical role at the heart of society.

•  State Power: Kept by repressive structures (law, courts, police, army).

•  State Control: Kept by ideological structures: art, political parties, churches, schools, media, family. It operates through hedgemony.

In Our Hands (1950) - Anti Communism Pro Capitalism film. Explains how private ownership not public leads to greater productivity, economic development / growth, and a free society.

Hegemony

•  Hegemony: process by which a dominant world view is internalized by the citizen so that it seems natural, not an ideology.

•  Interpellation: We feel we are choosing, but our choice is really very limited.

•  Makes us think we are free, so that wealth and power can stay in the hands of the few. Ideological power is greater than material power. According to Marxism, alienation is strengthened

while the sense of community is weakened. What advertising does is say to people, if you are concerned about an issue, buy something.

Theatre of the Oppressed

•  Marxism Dramatized: “I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups should transfer to the people the means of production in the theatre so that the people themselves may utilize them.”

•  “The theatre is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it.”

Theatre of the Oppressed

•  The Four Stages of Transforming a Spectator Into an Actor 1. Knowing the Body - series of exercises by which one gets to know one’s body, its

limitations and possibilities, its social distortions and possibilities of rehabilitation

2 Making the Body Expressive - a series of games by which one

begins to express one’s self through the body, abandoning other, more common and habitual forms of expression

Theatre of the Oppressed 3. The Theatre as Language

- One begins to practice theatre as a language that is living and present, not as a finished product displaying images from the past •  First Degree: Simultaneous Dramaturgy

- The spectators “write” simultaneously with the acting of the actors

•  Second Degree: Image Theatre - The spectators intervene directly, “speaking” through images made with the actor’s bodies

•  Third Degree: Forum Theatre - The spect-actors intervene directly in the dramatic action and act

Theatre as a language must be living and present, not a finished product

Theatre of the Oppressed 4. Theatre as Discourse

- Simple forms in which the spect-actor creates “spectacles” according to his/her need to discuss certain themes or rehearse certain actions.

•  Examples include: Newspaper Theatre, Invisible Theatre, Photo-Romance Theatre, Breaking of Repression, Myth Theatre, Trial Theatre, Masks and Rituals

Seville, Spain (2012)