Theatre History Overview - Part 61 - Theatre of the Oppressed

Theatre of the Oppressed, sometimes referred to as TO, is a form of theatre that was developed in the 1970s by Augusto Boal. Boal was a Brazilian theatre practioner. Boal's goal was to use his techniques in order to promote social and political change. His ideas were that this would happen by having a dialogue between the audience and the performer(s).

There are six techniques in Theatre of the Oppressed. Forum Theatre is a problem-solving technique. An unresolved scene of oppression is presented and then it is replayed. While it is replayed, the audience is invited to stop the action when they feel any character is oppressed or struggling. The audience can replace the character or improvise alternate solutions with the actor(s). This technique can be used to explore current situations, history, or even to prepare for situations that might happen.

Image theatre is a series of games and physical exercises. They are designed to uncover essential truths and opinions about society, self, culture, and more. Actors use their own bodies to "scuplt" frozen images representing oppressions, feelings, dreams for the future, and experiences. If this is difficult to imagine, just imagine the warm up game or the improve game where bodies are used to create still images, but put the significant details along with it.

Rainbow of desire is a technique used to deconstruct a person's story of tension nia relationship. This does not have to be a romantic relationship, even though i tcan be one. It can be any type of relationsship such as parent/child, boss/employee, friends, siblings, teacher/student, or more. Image theatre is used to identify driving forces and feelings in the relationship. While the process may start with a single character (or a single relationship), it will soon evolve into a group experience.

Cop-in-the-Head is a technique that explores societal messages, fears,and obstacles that have been interalized as thoughts and beliefs that prevent one from living a liberated life. It does not focus on external oppressors (cops). Instead, it focuses on using the previous techniques in order to find and focus on the internal oppressors.

Invisible theatre uses the above techniques to have Theatre of the Oppressed staged in public places. However, people are not supposed to know that the theatre was staged. The idea is to get people talking about the issue or issues presented.

Legislative theatre uses the above techniques in order to propose laws. This allows opinions to be collected directly from the people rather than having to rely on other people to give what they say is opinion of the people.

In Louisiana, Theatre of the Oppressed (specifically invisible theatre), can often be seen in parades. A group of people may dress in some way that indicates being oppressed by something. Then they will at least walk in a parade. Sometimes there will be more of a performance. Theatre of the Oppressed is used on stages accross the world in order to deal with political and social subjects.

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