doubleplusundead

November 30, 2009

Stealing another idea from the left - Theater of the Oppressed (another in a series of crackpot ideas that occur to me at 0300)

As I have mentioned before after being laid off in January I decided to squander my savings and return to school. (I decided I actually need a degree if I am going to keep working in engineering.) In order to finish my distribution requirements I needed one more Visual Literary and Performing Arts class so I decided to take the only one offered this quarter - Intro to World Theater. Most of the class has been pretty benign although there was some -read lots of - kill whitey stuff in our section on African American theater. Benign until (dramatic pause) THEATER OF THE OPPRESSED.

Developed by Augusto Boal as a tool for stirring up the oppressed masses in Central and South America he intended it to be full on Marxist-Leninist agitprop:

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

I pointed this out in class, and the instructor to his credit readily acknowledged it, but until I was finishing up my weekly class journal this morning it didn't really hit me - We're people and at the moment I am feeling pretty damned oppressed. When people on the right (Giles / O'Keefe) started using Alinsky style tactics it got immediate results. Why couldn't this work also? Anyone feel like writing a play?

The example of this type of theater that was used in class was "No saco nada de le escuela", but Boal wanted to go more primitive than that. He wanted the "peasants" involved as actors (spect-actors). By involving them he "was letting them write the story and come to their own conclusions" Of course if their conclusions were wrong whatever marxist revolutionary gang happened to be presenting the play was likely to engage in some re-education. Probably via a 7.62mm instructional aid, but Boal was OK with that.

Another example that I found is called IN-TEA-RRO-R-GATOR which proceeds from the idea that all interrogation is torture. This is one I would really like to see turned around and presented from the viewpoint of someone like Daniel Pearl as he is about to be beheaded.

Posted by: chad98036 at 07:20 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 375 words, total size 3 kb.

1 I will totally volunteer to write and play the lead. Ummmm Ember, you're not against some tasteful and integral to the plot nudity right? I'll just assume that you'll say yes and plan accordingly.

Posted by: alexthechick at November 30, 2009 09:45 AM (8WZWv)

2 There was a project that fell through that kinda went along these lines launched a few years ago called Brewing Culture. It was meant to offer friendly venues for conservative artists to meet up and hash out ideas. I think it's biggest problems were lack of funding, poor promotion and the fact that it revolved around meetings in a small number of major metros.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at November 30, 2009 09:54 AM (iJZsd)

3 Alex, you and Ember are still gonna wear the boots, though, right--just the boots?

Posted by: cbullitt at November 30, 2009 01:29 PM (M/WbE)

Ummmm Ember, you're not against some tasteful and integral to the plot nudity right? I'll just assume that you'll say yes and plan accordingly.

As long as it's totally integral to the plot. I'll sacrifice for your art.

Posted by: Ember at November 30, 2009 01:42 PM (LdRAG)

5 The socio-political lessons that can be taught with a lesbian sex scene are too many to really enumerate, but the boots and riding crop symbolize the way men have kept women subservient and...uhhhh......
What was I talking about?

Posted by: Veeshir at November 30, 2009 03:00 PM (88gkw)

6 HAHAHAHA!

Bananas

Posted by: MCPO Airdale at November 30, 2009 11:56 PM (UGAk/)

7 Hi..I am reading your page for a few days now is there any way to subscribe by email

flower delivery toronto
louisville flower

Posted by: sohninar at March 13, 2012 05:05 AM (W4VOq)

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