Theatre Of The Oppressed

Description

By (author) Boal Augusto

Short /annotation:
A classic Pluto book published for our 50th anniversary. The book that started a revolution in modern theatre by providing forums through which to imagine and enact social and political change.Theatre of the Oppressed started a new form of theatre which is still practised today. It has been translated into 25 languages and sold over 20,000 copies.

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Augusto Boal saw theatre as a mirror to the world, one that we can reach into to change our reality. This book, The Theatre of the Oppressed, is the foundation to ”Forum Theatre”, a popular radical form practised across the world.Boal”s techniques allowed the people to reclaim theatre, providing forums through which they could imagine and enact social and political change. Rejecting the Aristotelian ethic, which he believed allowed the State to remain unchallenged, he broke down the wall between actors and audience, the two sides coming together, the audience becoming the ”spect-actors”.Written in 1973, while in exile from the Brazilian government after the military coup-d”etat, this is a work of subversion and liberation, which shows that only the oppressed are able to free themselves.

Table of contents:
Preface to 2008 editionPreface to 2000 editionPreface to 1974 edition1. Aristotle”s Coercive System of Tragedy2. Machiavelli and the Poetics of Virtu3. Hegel and Brecht: The Character as Subject or the Character as Object?4. Poetics of the Oppressed5. Development of the Arena Theater of Sao PauloAppendicesIndex

Review quote:
”An affable intellectual and an effervescent teacher, [Boal] was a theatrical Johnny Appleseed who spent his later years spreading his doctrines of the theater as a land of equal opportunity for professionals and nonprofessionals alike” — The New York Times”Oppression, according to Augusto Boal, is when one person is dominated by the monologue of another and has no chance to reply. Boal”s life is devoted to giving those who are in this one-down position the tools with which to express themselves and discover a way out of their powerlessness” — The Harvard Gazette ”[His] achievement is 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, author of Modern Drama and the Death of God ”Should be read by everyone in the world of theatre who has any pretensions at all to political commitment” — John Arden, playwright ”Boal”s terrific energy came from his faith in the creativity, spontaneity and ability of all people, however underprivileged, to change their situation” — The Guardian

Biographical note:
Augusto Boal (1931-2009) was a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist and political activist. He is the author of Theatre of the Oppressed (Pluto Press, 2019).