How did Augusto Boal and his ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ tried to promote political and

social change through theatre?

Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre practitioner. He was born in the year 1931. He began
his work in the late 50’s. Boal was very famous for promoting political and social change
through theatre and has never been forgotten even today despite his death in 2009.

He went to Columbia University of New York to study theatre. One time, a woman in the
audience was so livid because the actor could not understand her suggestion. So, she came on
stage and demonstrated what she meant. For Boal, this was the time when the theatre practice
evolved. He started to allow audience members with suggestions for change – onto the stage
to demonstrate their ideas. He discovered that through this happening, the people in the
audience were able not only to picture change in their minds, but also able reflect as a group
on the suggestion, and therefore able to generate social action.

He therefore pioneered a technique of working called “Theatre of the Oppressed” where

people of the audience could participate in theatrical discussion. The spect-actor is based on
four transformational steps: knowing the body (individual and collective), making the body
expressive, using theatre as a language and using theatre as a discourse. The purpose of
Theatre of the Oppressed is to be able to use theatre as a medium for discussion of the solving
of socio-political problems. It is very much associated with the leftist movement partly due to
Boal’s own personal political beliefs.

In 1964, a tragic disaster struck Augusto Boal. He was exiled to Argentina for 5 years in
prison. During those 5 years, he published 2 books. 1 was called Torquemada which is about
the Brazilian military regime's systematic use of torture in prison and the other was called
Theatre of the Oppressed which was about theatrical forms that was described.

After 14 tough years of exile, Boal returned to Brazil in 1986 because the military
dictatorship in his country had fallen so he went to evolve his Centre for The Theatre of the
Oppressed. It served as a theatrical think tank for the discussion amongst the Brazilian
people. After this, Boal was elected as a councillor in hiss town of Rio too be able to
influence the political situation more directly without entering into party politics. Here 13 of
his proposed 40 laws were passed. Subsequently he was named UNESCO Global Theatre
Ambassador for his work. On Saturday the 2nd May 2009, Augusto Boal passed away at the
age of 78 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His cause of death was due to the suffering of leukemia.
From his moment of success, he has been argued as one of the best theatre practitioners.