Born in Brazil in 1931 to Portuguese parents, Augusto Boal worked with the Arena Theatre of Sao Paulo from 1955, making theatre in factories and on the streets.  Following imprisonment and torture by the dictatorship in 1971, he was exiled to Argentina.  Here and in Peru he developed his concept of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) until 1976, when the political climate forced a move to Europe.  He returned to Brazil in 1986, later serving as an MP.  TO is now a world-wide movement  (www.theatreoftheoppressed.org) with centres in dozens of countries. Boal has been nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.

Boal in context
Through a desire to bring about change under an oppressive regime, Boal arguably created some of the most radical yet accessible theatre techniques of the past 100 years.  After experimenting with agit-prop (propaganda) theatre, he drew upon fellow Brazilian Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed to create theatre with, rather than for audiences.  Central to the philosophy of TO is the concept that the audience know as much as the performers, and have just as much right to express their beliefs.  Boal’s theories and their highly practical applications are used every day by theatre companies, children, students and the homeless, for political change, for education and therapy in schools, theatres and on the streets.

Style
“Everyone can do theatre - even actors. And theatre can be done everywhere, even inside theatres”  - Augusto Boal.

Theatre of the Oppressed (Pluto, 1979) redefined theatre as a popular means of interactive expression and a tool for social change.  Forum Theatre is a means to this end, breaking down the boundary between performers and audience.  A play outlining a form of oppression is performed twice.  Members of the audience - spect-actors - are invited to spontaneously stop the action and show how the protagonist could behave differently, enabling alternative outcomes.  A Joker facilitates these interventions, enabling the creation of a dialogue on stage where the performance itself becomes a dynamic forum for debate.

Invisible Theatre scenes are performed interactively in public places without the prior knowledge of the audience, raising awareness about social issues by staging exaggerated versions of normal behaviour.  Members of the public are encouraged to express their own opinions through interaction with each other and (unwittingly) with the performers. The covert approach was invented by Boal as a means of avoiding arrest.  

Image theatre, now a widely-used drama technique, involves participants  in rapidly sculpting their own or others’ bodies to express feelings, attitudes and experiences.  These frozen images are dynamised - brought to life - in the investigation of oppression, enabling participants to express concerns and desires.  The Rainbow of Desire (Routledge, 1995) is Boal’s therapeutic use of Image Theatre to deal with internalised oppression.  More recently, Legislative Theatre was invented as a way of using theatre to make laws.

Further articles about Augusto Boal including sessions for Key Stages 3, 4 & 5 are available to registered subscribers or by purchasing the ebook So you think you know Boal.

• Introducing Boal at Key Stage 3