Theatre of the Oppressed

Theatre of the Oppressed is a type of theatre developed by Augusto Boal (1931-2009) in the 1960s in Brazil, inspired by the concepts of Paulo Freire (1921-1997) – critical pedagogy and the pedagogy of oppression. The socio-political context of Brazil at that particular time (the post-colonial influence and the authoritarian military regime) had a big influence on the development of this method.

Augusto Boal experimented with ways of using theatre to give a voice to the oppressed, to empower them to fight whatever was oppressing them. Throughout the time, the method underwent transformations depending on the context of each community that came to use it to solve their issues.

Theatre of the Oppressed in A.R.T. Fusion

In A.R.T. Fusion, we work with several forms of the Oppressed Theatre: Forum Theatre, Image Theatre, Legislative Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, Invisible Theatre and Rainbow of Desire.
We have started working with Forum Theatre in 2004 and we have adapted the method throughout the years, based on our experience in Romania and in other countries on three continents – Africa, Latin America and Europe. The changes’ purpose was to maximize the impact upon the public and to ease the learning and understanding processes of the method.

1

Forum Theater

uses theater as a means to empower and solve certain issues, working as a motivation to increase active citizenship towards making a change as well. The interactive feature of this kind of theater is given by the power that the public owns. With the Joker’s help, the people from the public can go up on the stage and replace a character from the play in their attempt to solve the illustrated oppression situation. Following this, the aim is that these people would transfer and apply these solutions within their communities.
2

Image Theater

is supposed to create images through different positions of the body, and these images ought to reflect oppression situations. The actors become statues in the Image Theatre plays, and the spectators can change their position so that they would provide positive solutions to the image in the illustrated reality.
3

Legislative Theater

usually follows the same structure as Forum Theatre, but its purpose is to extract ideas/solutions from the public in order to then be used in an advocacy process, based on the citizens’ proposal for a new legislative project or for changing the current legislation.
These events can be organized in partnership with institutions that are responsible for conducting the advocacy process or not. If so, the organizing team follows the necessary steps so that the proposals can end up in the attention of the responsible institutions.
4

Newspaper Theater

can be used as a technique/exercise in developing the other methods’ process, or as an independent method. Its main feature is that the main source of information and inspiration is the newspaper. Newspaper Theater can take different shapes: either a play, an exposition, a dynamic installation.
These events can be organized in partnership with institutions that are responsible for conducting the advocacy process or not. If so, the organizing team follows the necessary steps so that the proposals can end up in the attention of the responsible institutions.
5

Invisible Theatre

is implemented in public spaces and it is based on an initial script that is changed by the people around afterwards. The action seems natural, and the passers-by are not supposed to realize that the moment was actually staged. For them, it is a real life situation. It may approach examples of oppression that occur in public spaces (where usually no one intervenes) or of oppression on a wider scale within a society. This method presents the highest risks for the team, because the unpredictability factor is huge.
6

Rainbow of desire

is a method that usually addresses the interior oppression existing in each of us, that represents a consequence of different and past events and relationships.
It has a therapeutic approach and its purpose is not represented by public exposure. It is mainly created for the interior, personal process within a group, where different exercises are being used in order to empower the group members. Being aware of the fact that this technique has a very personal approach, it should be cautiously used, by professionals who can control the powerful emotional process within a group.

At the moment, A.R.T. Fusion focuses, through the project it implements, on empowering youth to identify their problems and finding solutions for them on the one hand, and on the other hand, it concentrates on guiding a higher number of people to become independent practitioners of the Theatre of the Oppressed methods.