Theatre of the Oppressed and its Times

Political theatre, such as Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), was created to fight against dictatorship and centralized politics. In today's social media and participatory democracies, how does TO function? This book explores how contemporary understandings of concepts like oppression, representation, participation, and emancipation shape TO, proposing a version of Forum Theatre dramaturgy that portrays oppression as a defining structure of societies. It also provides examples of movements and organizations that use TO to construct themselves.

Format: Hardback
Length: 156 pages
Publication date: 07 July 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Political theatre, like any form of political action, can only be evaluated in the context of the political moment in which it seeks to intervene. Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) was established to combat dictatorship and an extremely centralized notion of politics. How does it operate in today's world of social media and so-called participatory democracies?

This book, by providing a comprehensive account of the political and cultural context in which TO emerged, seeks to answer the following question: How do contemporary understandings of concepts such as oppression, representation, participation, and emancipation shape TO today? The book highlights the limitations of reducing oppression to one-to-one relationships and proposes a version of Forum Theatre dramaturgy that portrays oppression as a defining structure of societies. The author also shares specific examples of movements and other organizations that use Theatre of the Oppressed to construct themselves.

Theatre of the Oppressed and Its Times is an essential text for practitioners and scholars of TO, applied theatre practitioners, students, and anyone interested in how theatre can concretely assist in the transformation of the world.

Weight: 470g
Dimension: 246 x 174 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032350493