Theatre of the Oppressed

Boal explains that the following essay was written as an opener to a performance of La Mandragola, a play by Niccolò Machiavelli. Boal directed the play at the Arena Theatre in São Paulo from 1962-1963, utilizing Theatre of the Oppressed techniques.

The Feudal Abstraction

Aristotle viewed art as the transmission of knowledge through the perfection of forms. Karl Marx expanded this definition to suggest that art inherently reflects the social and political context within which it is created. Boal provides evidence for Marx’s argument through monarchy’s patronage of Shakespeare and other artists. Differences between Shakespeare’s works and those of Anglo-Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan reflect the influence of the different contexts of power that influenced their works. Because art was historically funded by the ruling class or the government, plays performed an important function, and Boal asserts that “[t]he aims of feudal art were the same as those of the clergy and nobility: to immobilize society by perpetuating the existing system” (55). Therefore, theater became a mechanism for the maintenance of sovereign political power.

In this context, catharsis is therefore intended to move audiences toward the political good—the perceived virtues of the historical and social context of the period, which inevitably promote the interests of the ruling class.