Agitprop and Theatre of the Oppressed

Abstract

One of Augusto Boal's first Brazilian experiments with agitprop forms takes place in the production of his text Revolution in South America in 1960 by the Teatro de Arena in Sao Paulo. In his exile, he developed the experiments which later resulted in the elaboration of the book Theatre of the Oppressed, and in his return to Brazil in 1986. In viewing the themes generally developed in Forum Theatre, it is also possible to establish its relationship with the agitational processes of the Red Army, as every form of oppression corresponds to some type of infraction of written laws or of equalitarian principles in human relationships. The Legislative Theatre, under specific circumstances, those of the promises of a thorough democratization in Brazil, in the hands of the oppressed population, became a technique of rehearsal in actual political practices so that one could envisage in practical terms the possibility of taking control of one’s own fate.