The History of the Theatre of the Oppressed
Augusto Boal
founder
As a writer, dramaturge, director, theoretician, and social activist, Augusto Boal established himself as a major figure in Brazilian theater and contemporary Brazilian politics during the second half of the 20th century.
In 1956 (at 25 years old) Boal founded the Arena Theater of São Paulo, where he served as artistic director and stage director. There, while he staged classical theater, he also developed a form of popular street theater as a form of social protest; here was the origin of the spect-Acteur, or spectator who also acted. However, the successive coups d'État of 1964 and 1968 destroyed any hope of being able to practice this type of socially active theater, which was considered by the state to be subversive. In 1971, Boal was exiled to Argentina where he published his first book The theater of the oppressed. He then travelled around South America and ended up in Europe, where he settled in Paris. While travelling across South America in the 1970s and experiencing many diverse forms of social and educational theater across the continent, Boal was writing and developping his own dramatic method. In March 1979 in Paris, he established the Centre du Théâtre de l’Opprimé (CTO-Paris), and the first festival of the Theater of the Oppressed took place in 1981.
From 1981, he turned towards a therapeutic form of theater, or what he called « le flic dans la tête » (the cop/policeman in the mind). His third book, The rainbow of desire, is an essay on this combination of theater and therapy. He returned to Brazil in 1986. In 1992 he was elected municipal legislator of the Worker's Party, the party of soon the be President Lula. This signalled the beginning of his work in theater legislation.
Rui Frati
director of the theater
Actor and director, Rui Frati began his theater career in Brazil after his studies in theater and sociology in São Paulo.
He has had several professional encounters that were formative to his career, including Robert Wilson, Andrei Serban, Enrique Buenaventura, Ruth Rachou, Augusto Boal, Ariane Mnouchkine, Maurice Vanneau, Alvin Nikolais…
In Europe, he taught at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Lisbon before moving to Paris in 1980. In 1989, he began working with Augusto Boal at the Theater of the Oppressed. In 1995 he found and set up a new location for the troupe in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, with a theater, a foyer, a rehearsal room, and an administrative office.
In 1998 he succeeded Augusto Boal as the director of the Theater of the Oppressed, and now directs both the physical theater and the theater company. He then expanded the company and opened the theater to other theater troupes. Since then, more than one hundred companies have been welcomed to the theater to perform here and work with the TO company. At the TO, artists and companies meet each season to share intergenerational and intercultural experiences.
He strives to establish the company as a European resource center for the Theater of the Oppressedmethod. Each season, the company guarantees the performance of a newly written piece by a new contemporary author. Several of these creations have been presented abroad, including in Italy, Portugal, Spain, as well as in Taiwan, Chili, and Iran, where Dans l'Ombre won the jury prize of the FADJR Festival...
Boal's method continued to develop and evolve. Rui Frati and the ensemble responsible for the Company of the Theater of the Oppressed's projects have now created more than a hundred théâtres forum on a wide variety of themes, and the TO continues to organize international and domestic projects, including collaborations with NGOs and cultural centers (Germany, England, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, China, Spain, Greece, Guyana, Reunion Island, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Mexico, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Taiwan...)
Frati is the president of IEPC, an association based on a method created by Paulo Freire, that runs 15 childcare centers and several education centers for social groups and families around the Ile de France region. Thanks to his position as president of the IEPC and director of the TO, Rui Frati has established a very strong relationship between IEPC and the Theater of the Oppressed that involves constant collaboration and performances every year.
The Company
The company consists of theater professionals anxious to defend their place as artistic citizens who create new contemporary creations every season. These pieces include multiple forms of performing art, including dance, music, etc.
The Company also produces multiple théâtre-forum pieces (between 100-150 per year), as well as training workshops and internships. These forums and training events take place in different places, including schools and universities, community centers, health centers, businesses and associations, homeless shelters and migrant centers, etc. These different performance spaces allow the TO to establish a greater outreach with an audience that typically receives less exposure to theater.
The Theater of the Oppressed also develops artists and trains actors internationally, including in Germany, England, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, China, Spain, Greece, Guyana, Reunion Island, Iran, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Mexico, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Taiwan, etc.
« Aborder les conflits sociaux et humains par le théâtre… provoquer la discussion, réfléchir et comprendre ensemble en scène, voilà notre parti-pris ! »
''To approach social and humain conflicts through theater, to provoke discussion and reflection and to understand together on stage; that is our commitment!''
- Rui Frati, director of CTO-Paris
Named as director of the Centre du Théâtre de l’Opprimé Paris (CTO-Paris) in 1998 by Augusto Boal himself, Rui Frati has completely revitalized the company. Frati and the company have continued to develop the method, which is composed of several techniques: théâtre-forum, image theater, rainbow of desire, invisible theater. They seek to expand their horizons and develop the scale of the change they they inflict.
Find the presentation of the company here.
⭒⭑⭒
The artistic team in 2024-2025
Artistic Director: Rui Frati
Musical Director: Toninho do Carmo
Head of development: Alain Ramírez Méndez
Actors: Razan Al Azzeh, Joel Anderson, David Antoniotti, Zoé Blangez, Manuela Brazil, Alain Carbonnel, Marceau Deschamps-Ségura, Delphine Dey, François Durègne, Benoît Félix-Lombard, Maria-Teresa Ferreira, Leo Frati, Bastien Girard-Lucchini, Samira Karabadja, Justine Lecoq, Julie Manautines, Ariane Naziri, Jean Pavageau, Alain Ramírez, Nawal Sharifi, Victor Tocatlian, Thierry Vérin, Solange Wotkiewicz
Une méthode
It was in Latin America in the 1970s that Augusto Boal created the method of the theater of the oppressed, with the goal of rendering visible the social and political conflicts and giving a voice to marginalised groups oppressed by totalitarian powers. In the past 55 years, the method has evolved constantly. The théâtre-forum is the most performance-oriented techniaue used by the method; from a contemporary social conflict and a question, the troupe creates and interprets theatrical scenes that provoke discussion. The audience, interrogated by the director (whom we call the joker), is invited to reflect on how to confront the problems in front of them. Having become the spectActeur, the audience then enters the scene, confronts and plays with the other actors, and contributes their own ideas and alternatives for facing what is on stage. The public and the actors confront this social issue together by constructing alternatives.
« Être citoyen, ce n’est pas vivre en société, c’est la changer »
''To be a citizen is not to live in society but to change it''
- Augusto Boal
The method of the theater of the oppressed offers to actors and non-actors alike the tools and the autonomy to act on their desire to resolve conflicts.
« Essayons sur scène ce que nous devons défendre dans la vie ! »
''We try on stage what we must defend in real life''
It is not about sending a message or finding a good or perfect resolution. It is about exploring, experimenting, discoverin,g and understanding together.
A place
The Company of the Theater of the Oppressed organises workshops and internships, research opportunities for artists, rehearsals, and performances in our own space. Since 1998, the team (directed by Rui Frati) has been in a constant state of evolution and development and has received at the theater hundreds of other theater troupes, musical and dance performances, contemporary dramas, and emerging your theater companies. We are also work with established directors and troupes, and with spectacles for young audiences.
Our seasons are marked by certain larger events:
-
September-October : Festival Pleins Feux sur la jeune création, dedicated to the first professional piece of a young emerging theater troupe (in partnership with the Jeune Théâtre National since 2023-2024).
-
January: Festival Carte blanche - an opportunity awarded to a company or collective with the best festival proposal.
-
June-July: MigrActions. A festival celebrating the interactions between the arts across generations, by the Theater of the Oppressed and artistic creators.