When does a session of The Theatre of the Oppressed end? Never - since the objective is not to close a cycle, to generate a catharsis, or to end a development. On the contrary, its objective is to encourage autonomous activity, to set a process in motion, to stimulate transformative creativity, to change spectators into protagonists. And it is precisely for these reasons that the Theatre of the Oppressed should be the initiator of changes the culmination of which is not the aesthetic phenomenon but real life.

Augusto Boal

Categorized in : Real Theatre Creativity

Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.

Augusto Boal

theatre waiting mean

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Augusto Boal

citizens actors

It is not the place of the theatre to show the correct path, but only to offer the means by which all possible paths may be examined.

Augusto Boal

theatre may mean

Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre - or theatricality - is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity. Man can see himself in the act of seeing, in the act of acting, in the act of feeling, the act of thinking. Feel himself feeling, think himself thinking.

Augusto Boal

feelings men thinking

The theater itself is not revolutionary: it is a rehearsal for the revolution.

Augusto Boal

rehearsal revolution revolutionary

Empathy is the most powerful weapon [...]

Augusto Boal

empathy powerful weapons

The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it.

Augusto Boal

acting weapons people

Theatre is the art of looking at ourselves.

Augusto Boal

theatre art

Anyone can do theater, even actors. And theater can be done everywhere. Even in a theater.

Augusto Boal

theater actors done

Nothing is going to remain the way it is. Let us, in the present, study the past, so as to invent the future.

Augusto Boal

study way past

The poetics of the oppressed is essentially the poetics of liberation: the spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself! Theatre is action!

Augusto Boal

theatre character thinking

The Theatre of the Oppressed is theatre in this most archaic application of the word. In this usage, all human beings are Actors (they act!) and Spectators (they observe!).

Augusto Boal

usage theatre actors

All human beings are Actors (they act!) and Spectators (they observe!).

Augusto Boal

spectators actors humans

Theatre is a weapon. For that reason it must be fought for.

Augusto Boal

theatre weapons reason

Theatre is the most perfect artistic form of coercion.

Augusto Boal

theatre coercion perfect

It is forbidden to walk on the grass. It is not forbidden to fly over the grass.

Augusto Boal

forbidden walks grass