Jale Karabekir

“If the oppressed himself (and not a surrogate artist) performs an action, this action, performed in a theatrical fiction, will allow him to change things in his real life. ”

In this article I will attempt to discuss how Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques may be handled with a feminist approach and how women’s liberation or resistance practices can take place through theatre/performance. It will be appropriate to begin with a short introduction to the Theatre of the Oppressed, which is a theatre technique new to Turkey. The Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of political theatre which began in Brazil in the 1950s along with the labour movement and developed further with the origin of different techniques in Europe . I believe that the actual point of origin was the question of ‘how theatre can be used as a tool for consciousness-raising’. Other techniques, created in the light of this question and with different aims which do not deviate from the main aim, are practiced world-wide today . At the very foundation of the Theatre of the Oppressed lie the techniques of Forum Theatre. With regards to this, I will try, especially, to describe Forum Theatre and explain how this technique may be applied to women’s studies, through examples.

Forum Theatre: The Intervention of the Spectator, and Change

The Theatre of the Oppressed starts out from the concepts of pressure and oppression, and aims at changing the existing theatrical form to create an understanding and methodology of theatre in which the public has the power to change. The goal of the Theatre of the Oppressed is creating the Theatre of the audience, the spectator. In Forum Theatre, first of all, a workshop is conducted with a certain community. Within this workshop, the concept of pressure and oppression is worked upon; the common problem of the community in question is then transformed into a play by way of improvisation. However, the dramatic structure of the play is different from existing theatre. The play ends at a point where the problem mounts into a crisis. After this point the play can be opened up to the spectators and they are asked whether there is anything within the play they wish to change. From now on, the right of speech and the power to change rests upon the spectators. The theatre of the spectator begins right here, at this point exactly.

The participation of the audience within Forum Theatre takes place through the transformation of the spectator into the spect-actor: The spectator replaces the oppressed character (the protagonist) and tries to produce different solutions, to resist the oppression depicted on the stage . Undoubtedly a new theatre begins with the participation of the spectator; a process, in which the whole auditorium discusses and tries to create strategies, starts out. Augusto Boal describes this situation in the following manner:

“Forum Theatre is a reflection on reality and a rehearsal for future action. In the present, we re-live the past to create the future. The spect-actor comes on stage and rehearses what it might be possible to do in real life. ”

In the Theatre of the Oppressed theatre ceases being an art to be ‘watched’, instead it is transformed into a structure which is ‘participated in, produced together’. The duty of theatre thus becomes more than merely raising consciousness; it becomes about creating ‘the theatre of the spectator’, that is, creating agency and activeness. However, this new theatrical form is an intervention by the spect-actor in which real life is rehearsed, which takes place within a fictive structure but is transformed into a real and ‘concrete’ experience within this fiction and the framework of its limits .

An Example of the Theatre of the Oppressed from Turkey: A Feminist Methodology

The best example I can give for Theatre of the Oppressed practices in Turkey is the work I’ve done with women in the Okmeydanı district from years 2000 to 2002. This work, which was the topic of my masters thesis, involved not only Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, but also interviews I conducted at the end of the process. These interviews provided many important insights on the participants’ thoughts about the work we had done. What the participants voiced showed me, more than theory ever could, that the Theatre of the Oppressed, and Forum Theatre to be more specific, could be a methodology to form practices of resistance against the patriarchy. This is exactly why I wish to continue this piece with the words of the women whom I conducted this research with.

The Theatre of the Oppressed is, as I have already mentioned, an interactive method. However, this is not all it is about. A workshop carried out with a certain community of women, the exercises and the games, are structured in such a way as to support creativity, both on an individual and collective level. This ensures the formation of a group consciousness within the community. Women’s capacities to express themselves within these workshops conducted with them, the realization that their problems are not individual but shared, the depiction and analysis of oppression through working with images doubtlessly point at the beginning of a certain process. The beginning of this process can only be qualified by that community evolving into a group, their discovering their own capacities and abilities and developing them, and their creating a play by focusing on the issue shared by the whole group. When the forum play prepared as a result of the workshop meets an audience, the second step takes place. As soon as this play, in which women’s issues are depicted, is staged in a public arena, the issue has been made visible. This making visible of issues, is, as I mentioned previously, only a beginning. The spect-actors’ participation, their attempt at showing certain strategies for solution by ‘acting and performing’ on stage, forms the most important tool in women’s searches for ways of resisting against the patriarchy and, generally speaking, in the whole struggle against the patriarchy. The most important point here lies beyond the solution proposals themselves; it is the very ‘action’ itself. Because the spectators, spect-actors and actors see themselves as individuals who have the power to change, in an environment in which the problem can be discussed, and they find space to put the thoughts into practice. The Theatre of the Oppressed does not aim for a result, but for the process. This process may be defined as one where all participants, after a theatre workshop and performance which reflects the truth just as much as it is completely fictive, try to look at and analyse life, see its problems and attempt at solutions. It gives one the chance of applying the perspective given by the Theatre of the Oppressed to one’s life. When considered from this angle, the goal of practicing the Theatre of the Oppressed with women especially, is, in long-term, managing to form a process, managing to form solidarity among women and achieve the raising of consciousness .

In the work I conducted in Okmeydanı, our agenda became, mainly, about domestic problems. The basic reason for this was not that women focused on family issues or that they had this topic in common. No; it was that they could only talk about or create a play on issues which were granted to them, that is, which could be defined as legitimate in relation to them. The main things chosen to be topics for plays were, generally, the following: Domestic violence, discrimination between girls and boys, forced and arranged marriages, the pressure of the mother-in-law, the harassment of women within professional life… The topics of forum plays are, of course, quite important. However, as I have previously mentioned, the Theatre of the Oppressed points at a process, and not at a result. What is more important is that on any topic whatsoever, a discussion is opened and the spectators are activated into demonstrating agency. Collective change and transformation is therefore right in the midst of the activity of the Theatre of the Oppressed. The process itself begins within this action. A woman reflecting this experience on her own life, her realization that she is capable of changing and transforming her own life and her attempt at finding solution methods in her own life explains this process much more clearly.

The Theatre of the Oppressed is a feminist methodology: It begins by drawing reality onto a fictive plain in order to render it debatable. After oppression has been dramatized a new play starts along with the participation of the spect-actor. That is, reality which has been made into fiction is transformed into yet another fiction. However, this new fiction comes to life with the intervention of the spectators, with their agency (and this, in and of itself, is not complete fiction; it is the reality within the fiction). As the spectators watch a play they are no longer solely immersed in mental activity; instead, they also put these mental activities into action. The audience sees and experiences that it can do, it can find solutions, create strategies, resist against the situation of oppression that is portrayed. When the Forum Play is over, however, this process is still in continuation. Because the spectator will be able to continue the agency rehearsed upon the stage, for real, in real life.

“There are many people around us, who say that they do not want a daughter, who tell us that we must, above all, give birth to a son. That was what our play was about. The groom who didn’t want his mother-in-law around, who kept telling his wife that her mother couldn’t stay there… Discrimination within the home between the daughter and the son, where the son is always superior, the daughter always secondary in importance and where the daughter is forbidden to go outside… The woman who is constantly battered and beaten at home even though she keeps serving and serving, the unemployed husband who does nothing but drink, the husband who does not bring any money into the house… These were the realities of our lives, and so we acted these out.” (Aysu)

“What we were acting was actually real life, what was experienced in reality, because in the plays we put on stage there were things that I have seen, things that I have heard. You know, we did not act anything artificial there, because these were things that actually happened. This can be in the East, in Istanbul, in Tokat, but above all they were things we had most certainly heard of. I mean, I may not have experienced this, but then you had, you know, so we acted only things from our real lives.” (Gizem)

“There is not one solution only. When we depicted an issue, a problem, everybody would find solutions from their own perspectives. That is, the person who thought of that solution had a life and standards in accordance to it. So, the solution had to be like that, you know, in the person’s own view. This gave me a lot of flexibility. I knew this stuff you see, I had read about it, but in practicing interactive theatre I actually experienced these things, or rather this stuff actually consolidated within me, coincided and became firmer.” (Arsen)

“I saw that there wasn’t a single solution. How can we solve this, what would the best way be, what can actually happen in life… Different comments, different interpretations came from different people. You then tried to find which one was the best one, the one most right for you, because maybe you, yourself, did not have that creativity, did not have any ideas for a solution. You are stuck in one place and cannot find a way out. When you see so many solutions coming from other people, this makes you happy. These problems are actually quite solvable. That is, they must be resolved right here and they really can be solved, but a person must have belief in oneself and be self-confident. This is absolutely mandatory for one to be able to actually apply these solutions, in real life.” (Aysu)

Forum Theatre provides a space for women to express themselves, to realize that their problems are shared, to become aware of the means with which they are oppressed. However, more than this, it also supplies them with a space for changing and transforming this situation. Sanjoy Ganguly, from Jana Sanskriti, a theatre collective which has been practicing the Theatre of the Oppressed with women in rural India for over 20 years, expresses this as the following:

“One sees a problem; this is an external problem. But then, this person sees their own internal problem. This is where the inner revolution begins. One discovers oneself. One discovers one’s own power, own strength. Then this person sees the oppressors, discovers them, and from now on these oppressors can no longer exist because the person begins to struggle, initiates a conflict. This conflict is the aestheticisation of life and the experiencing of an inner revolution. This inner revolution then leads one to an external revolution. This is why I tell Boal – because Boal says that theatre is the rehearsal of a revolution – that for me, theatre is the rehearsal of a total revolution. He asks me why I say “total”? Because it is the revolution of both the inner journey and an external revolution.”

One reason for my definition of the Theatre of the Oppressed as a feminist methodology is Judith Butler’s theory that gender is, both in its creation and structure and as resistance, performative. Gender is created, not only theoretically and conceptually, but also performatively, that is, by acting and doing. According to Butler, gender, which is created performatively by the patriarchy, can only be transformed and changed, once again, performatively . From this perspective, while we are being told from the stage about the gendered bodies and gender roles formed by the patriarchy, once the play has been opened up to the participation of the audience we can also mention the spect-actor’s struggle to transform these bodies, these constructs and social roles through performance, that is, by acting.

“My neighbour, who came here lately, told me that this had really excited her. That it was really very different… She came back and was telling every one of our neighbours about it, telling them that she had gone there and had even acted. She was really excited, and was telling about the play with great enthusiasm. This is what the play was about; they’d considered this and that issue; I got up; what you do is try to find a solution method, and stuff like that. Of course, the neighbours also wanted to come. Ok honey, let’s also go and see. What they told me was, even if you have a child next year, we’ll take care of the child, you go… In the theatre classes what we did was put ourselves in the shoes of the oppressed. This taught me a lot of things. In the past, when somebody did something I tended to take it personally, but now I stop and think, you know, I can consider what kind of conditions, what kind of situations and realities make one say certain things. I’ve started to understand people, I think, especially women… This is what I’ve realized. When communicating with women I used to get really angry. By putting myself in their place, I’ve begun to understand, to agree with them, see that they are right. In social life I no longer get offended by anything. That is, when something happens, I no longer lock myself in and shut myself off from the rest of the world in an offended manner. I’ve realized that I’m a feminist. Essentially, what I’ve realized is that I am on the side of preventing women’s oppression. I believe that women should be friends; they should, above all, support each other.” (Tevfika)

“It feels like all writing does is sit there, remain there. Taking it off of paper and getting it into your head, understanding it and living it in your own life seems very hard and technical. I still read, but I don’t lay as much hope in it as I used to. Interactive theatre has taught me that through living and doing, much more beautiful things and many more solutions are possible.” (Arsen)

The Theatre of the Oppressed, in relation to women’s studies, brings up a performative feminist methodology as a way of resisting against the patriarchy and of changing and transforming our lives. As Arsen says: “It made certain things in my life more than theory; it rendered them applicable, practical.”

Jale Karabekir from Theatre Boyalı Kuş (Painted Bird)/ Artistic Director

** For more detailed information cf, Karabekir, J., Performance as a Strategy for Women’s Liberation: Practices of the Theatre of the Oppressed Practices in Okmeydanı Social Center, published graduate thesis, Bogazici University, Institute of Social Studies, 2004

From Amargi- Issue 9