Description
Part of Pluto's 21st birthday series Get Political, which brings essential political writing in a range of fields to a new audience. 'One of the most revered figures in world theatre ...the liberation theologian of theatre.' Guardian 'Should be read by everyone in the world of theatre who has any pretensions at all to political commitment.' John Arden 'So remarkable, so original and so ground-breaking that I have no hesitation in describing the book as the most important theoretical work on the theatre in modern times.' George Wellwarth "Theatre is a weapon...A weapon for liberation." This new edition of Theatre of the Oppressed brings a classic work on radical drama fully up to date and includes a new foreword by the author Augusto Boal. Boal restores theatre to its proper place as a popular form of communication and expression. He demonstrates the ways in which theatre has come to reflect ruling-class control, drawing on the theories of Aristotle and Machiavelli. He then shows the process reversed in Brechtian/Marxist poetics to the revolutionary potential of transforming the spectator into the actor. Throughout, Boal draws on his own experience in Latin America and illustrates his theory with practical examples.
Is the fundamental relationship between an actor and an audience an equal and active one, or is it a situation that encourages passivity and division? This is the question at the heart of Augusto Boal's revolutionary
Theatre of the Oppressed, originally published in 1979. Boal, a Brazilian artist and activist, has written a work that challenges the very premise of Western theater, starting with Aristotle and the first dramatists, and explores what social constructs lie behind the traditional theater form. Then, having explained such often invoked (but rarely scrutinized) terms as
imitation,
tragedy, and
justice, he puts forward a new type of drama that bridges the long-existing gap between theater and politics. Central to his thesis is an attempt to bring spectators into an active role with the drama, encouraging them to comment on the social situations they see presented and suggest potentials for change. Other chapters explore the writings of Hegel and Brecht, along with a lengthy analysis of one of the most profound political thinkers to ever pen a play, Machiavelli and his bitter comedy
Mandragola. Boal's book is a challenging one for American actors often politically naive and heavily schooled in the traditions of Stanislavsky-based "naturalism," but this text is vital reading for activists, progressives, and all artists trying to effect social change.
--John Longenbaugh
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