Augusto Boal and Applied Theatre

PECI 1501

“Artists are the witnesses of our times” (Boal (1992) Games for Actors and Non-Actors. P.17).

How might theatre be used to engage with contemporary social and political issues and bring about change? Refer to bibliographical material, to the praxis of Boal and other relevant applied theatre-makers and to your own practical work on this module to develop your argument.

Brecht once said, ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.’ His philosophy of ‘using theatre in the service of social change’ was based on Marx's dictum that 'the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it (Prentki, T and Preston, S, Eds 2009: 12). Brazilian theatre educator Augusto Boal who was affected by Brecht created his dramatic art theory and practical system, theatre of the oppressed, as such a hammer, involving social and political issues and striving to bring about change. Poetics, as the first definitive masterpiece exploring the nature of dramas written by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, inaugurated the tradition of ‘Aristotle's Poetics’ and has influenced Western theatre arts for a thousand years. But Boal then attacked Poetics as ‘oppressive poetics’. He was concerned about the purpose of inhibition in the Aristotle’s tragic system because Aristotle said ‘tragedy exists as a function of catharsis, the correction of man’s actions’, that tragedy was used as a tool for dominators and nobles to rule and control people (Boal 1979: 27). To refute this view, Boal reflected Aristotle, Hegel, Brecht and others’ theories critically and dialectically, showing that the theatre can serve for the oppressed and helps them express themselves, discover new concepts and make some changes by utilizing this new language (Boal 1979: 121).

Based on this knowledge of the theatre, the role and responsibilities of the artists are not so much a ‘performer’, as it is more like an ‘educator’, who bear the new philosophy and objective of the theatre in mind, trying to approach and guide the audiences. From the perspective of social psychology, performance becomes a method of self-awareness and personal change at this level, which provides individuals with an ‘experiential, communicative tool to express what might otherwise be inexpressible’ (Howard 2004: 129) and artists are who enlightening. This process combines the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, regarding education as ‘a political praxis at the service of permanent human liberation’ (Freire 1985), which consists of two stages. The initial stage is ‘consciousness’, that people will realize that they are oppressed; the second stage is ‘praxis (reflection + action) ’, that people are going to change the status through practice.

When witness a scene that is same or similar with their