Theatre of the Oppressed Methodology
– Brief overview
Theatre of the Oppressed is a type of theatre methodology developed by Augusto Boal (1931 – 2009) in the 1960s inspired by the critical pedagogy and pedagogy of the oppressed concepts of Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997). Both of them were based in Brazil at the time and the social-political context of those days (post-colonialist era and authoritarian military junta regime) significantly influenced the development of these concepts, approaches and methodology. In the resource chapter of this material you can find references for the titles of the most relevant works of these authors which you can purchase (also online) or freely download (some of them) in order to read in detail the ideas and the original thoughts regarding the concept of oppression, pedagogy of oppression, critical pedagogy and theatre of the oppressed.
As it was mentioned, in the 1960s Augusto Boal experimented with theatre in order to give voice to the oppressed, to empower them to fight the oppression in their life. He was active at first in Brazil then he was forced to leave the country and he continued to work with the methods predominantly in Europe. During his lifetime he got in contact with many theatre practitioners as well as other people interested in working with theatre for social change and he trained and worked together with them in various countries in the world. During this time the initial methods developed, were transformed and new methods emerged as well. The people that he got in touch with continued to work with the methods in their communities, adapting and adjusting them to their own contexts.
It is estimated that from the ‘60s to today the methods included under the umbrella of theatre of the oppressed have probably reached more than 100 countries although in fact it is difficult to monitor this aspect because there is no coordinated monitoring system that can track down all the practitioners around the world. Due to various factors that pushed the methods to be transformed, upgraded, adjusted, adapted, changed, etc. at the moment there is no set of concrete and specific criteria that could attempt to define or standardize this methodology. The richer arsenal of approaches and the complete freedom in terms of working with these methods allowed the beginners and experienced practitioners to work in various settings, types of communities and beneficiaries which lead to different levels of impact. The down side of this “freedom” also lead to practices which could be categorized as potentially dangerous, for the team or public, for their emotional and sometimes physical wellbeing, regarding the message that they sent across (sometimes reinforcing oppression or promoting violence) and doing more harm than good.
Very often the practitioners in the field use the same terminology (which is often taken for granted) but refer to different things and there is no concrete reference point to be used.
Although the methodology was developed initially as a community based approach (for community intervention and empowerment) in these days you will find types of theatre of the oppressed being used in workshops or training courses (as a tool for debating on specific topics or to introduce them), or as a method of teambuilding in the corporation sector.
We make these mentions in order to be aware of them while referring or exploring Theatre of the Oppressed, in this education material and also in other contexts.