Simply put, Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is:
Not only did this radical step defy the rigid actor-spectator separation of Stanislavski’s theatre form, but also further broke down the ‘fourth wall’ of Brecht and turned didactic theatre into a dialectic one. Further, it offered a cathartic value of destroying the blocks that are detrimental to the realisation of actions.
“a system of physical exercises, aesthetic games, image techniques and special improvisations whose goal is to safeguard, develop and reshape [the] human vocation, by turning the practice of theatre into an effective tool for the comprehension of social and personal problems and the search for their solutions”
[Augusto Boal. 1995. The rainbow of desire: the Boal method of theatre and therapy. Pg. 14-15]
In essence, Boal upgraded the intransitive dialogue between the stage and the spectator to a transitive, bi-directional one. He added certain discernible characteristics to TO and designed the process of theatre-making in the following repertoire:
- instead of professional actors playing on a pre-written piece, a group of community participants are taken through a workshop process of creating a play on issues that are relevant to them;
- in the workshop, participants make extensive use of their bodies to form sculptures, or rather images (thus called Image Theatre), that in a deliberate absence of words, metaphorically encapsulate their narratives of oppression in society and the corresponding feelings and attitudes; these are exhaustively analysed to properly comprehend the issues and thence form the plot of the theatre piece;
- the plot is then taken through another extensive dramaturgical development process of analytical and aesthetical improvisations to most vividly expose the essence of the plot;
- the performance takes the form of a forum (Forum Theatre) where the spectators are encouraged to become spect-actors ( = spectator + actor, i.e. spectators who are not passive, but actively take part in acting) who can intervene onto the stage (as the play is repeated), replace any of the protagonists and try something to bring the character out of oppression
