Theatre of the Oppressed

As illiteracy has been shown to be a weapon of the ruling class, so Augusto Boal shows theatre to be a weapon, not only of bourgeois control but of revolution. 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. All the theory is related to his own experience of revolutionary theatre in Latin America, and illustrated with practical examples of exercises and games used in the People’s Theatre of Peru. This is now a classic text on radical drama. Boal restores theatre to its proper place as a popular form of communication and expression, and points to the revolutionary potential of transforming the spectator into the actor.