Reconciling Boal and Bourgeoise?

Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theater director who founded the Arena Theater and Theater of the Oppressed. The latter is a system of theater that takes of Brechtian Marxist ideas and rejects Aristotilean drama that allows for catharsis on the part of the spectators. He argues that this catharsis allows for the spectators to live vicariously through the heroes of aristotilean drama. This kind of drama does nothing to help the people become conscious of the power relationships that contribute to their oppression.  It also perpetuates this oppression because it keeps them is a passive position and does not give put the means of theatrical production in their hands. Through a variety of games and forms of theater, Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed strives to empower “the people”.

Initially I structured my research as an investigation into how street theater troupes in Delhi had taken up and used or modified Boal’s techniques in their own work.  However, I’ve realized through investigation and personal reflection that most theaterpeople here (and I suspect everywhere) are no longer very interested in Boal.

He proposes a system of theater.  I think that the work that he did was very important in terms of empowering the people and setting them on the path to empowerment. But the thing is that to really be empowered in a democratic sense of the word is to be empowered as an individual.  So, as an individual, and more importantly a critical thinker, presented with Boal’s system of theater I am somewhat disenchanted. If all I wanted to do was empower others then his system would be quite useful to me. Undoubtedly I will use it a great deal throughout the rest of my life because I do see myself engaging in some sort of a teaching role. However, I am also very interested in exercising my individual creative agency. Doing theater through Boal’s system does not allow me to do this because what he proposes is a system. I don’t think you can make art by following systems.  Techniques aid in the creation of art, but a well functioning system is exemplified – surprisingly enough – by the Delhi metro.  The metro is wonderful but not a work of art.  It requires minimal effort and critical engagement to achieve the desired end.

To get from point A to point B, all you have to do is buy a card with credit, go through the metal detector, look for the station you want, and get on the train going in the right direction.  To get from oppressed to empowered you have to act out a situation dealing with a social issue in your community, involve the spectators in simultaneous dramaturgy by having them stop the action to re-determine its course, and discuss the various options that are proposed.  To me, this isn’t making art it is following a system.

I’m fairly sure that Boal intends for some sort of modification and reinterpretation of his way of doing theater. Which is what has happened.  People interested in engaging in a project of using theater to empower people have seen the importance of making art the resonates with the reality that “the people” live.  Involving “the people” so as to help them gain a critical consciousness of the oppressions they experience. Boal’s games and various methods of putting up plays are very useful resources in this project. But theaterpeople, myself included are also interested in exploring our own creative agency. Our own potential for using theater to whatever ends they want to. They want to explore their empowerment as individuals that they have gained to express themselves through art.  People hear Boal’s philosophy and have progressed far beyond it. They’ve taken his basic philosophy and some of his games but his performance formats they’ve cast aside as uninteresting or didactic. If you’re using a system to produce something without some sort of critical engagement, it is not art. I want to make art.

Where I find myself standing is in a difficult position. On the one hand I don’t want to disempower people by presenting art that provokes in them such a catharsis that they are moved to inaction and complicity with the power structures that keep them oppressed. I suppose Boal would call me bourgeoise in that I am interested in the stories of extraordinary individuals and I do believe in unique individual artistic talent.  I don’t believe that you can objectively judge what is “good art” or what is “good theater”.  To “the people” Boal’s theater is often the best art they’ve been exposed to, for members of the “bourgeoise”, they need something that represents their reality too. So I am struggling to negotiate a space, position or path between empowering the people and empowering myself as an individual.

I suppose Boal has started this process, he’s made me conscious of the power structures that I’m caught up in. I’d say this with a bit of a scoff, but it is very valuable to be pushed to figure out what kind of art I really want to make.