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.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Preface to the 2008 edition
Preface to the 2000 edition – The Unruly Protagonist
Preface to the 1974 edition
1. Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy
Introduction
Art Imitates Nature
What is the Meaning of ‘Imitation’?
What, then, is the Purpose of Art and Science?
Major Arts and Minor Arts
What does Tragedy Imitate?
What is Happiness?
And What is Virtue?
Necessary Characteristics of Virtue
The Degrees of Virtue
What is Justice?
In What Sense can Theatre Function as an Instrument for Purifi cation and Intimidation?
The Ultimate Aim of Tragedy
A Short Glossary of Simple Words
How Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy Functions
Different Types of Confl ict: Hamartia and Social Ethos
Conclusion
2. Machiavelli and the Poetics of Virtù
The Feudal Abstraction
The Bourgeois Concretion
Machiavelli and Mandragola
Modern Reductions of Virtù
3. Hegel and Brecht: The Character as Subject or the Character as Object?
The ‘Epic’ Concept
Types of Poetry in Hegel
Characteristics of Dramatic Poetry, Still According to Hegel
Freedom of the Character-Subject
A Word Poorly Chosen
Does Thought Determine Being (or Vice Versa)?
Can Man be Changed?
Confl ict of Wills or Contradiction of Needs?
Empathy or What? Emotion or Reason?
Catharsis and Repose, or Knowledge and Action?
How to Interpret the New Works?
The Rest Does Not Count: They Are Minor Formal Differences Between the Three Genres
Empathy or Osmosis
4. Poetics of the Oppressed
Experiments with the People’s Theatre in Peru
Conclusion: ‘Spectator’, a Bad Word!
5. Development of the Arena Theatre of São Paulo
Need for the ‘Joker’
Goals of the ‘Joker’
Structures of the ‘Joker’
Appendices
Notes
Index
Sobre o autor
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).
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