ABSTRACT
The roots of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) lie in carnival and circus, Brechtian theory, and the pedagogical philosophy of Paulo Freire. In carnival and circus Boal found public engagement and merriment, a myriad of voices and interpretations, inversions and reversals, clowns, irreverence, and popular forms of satirical and comedic resistance. In Brecht there was outrage, critical disengagement from and analysis of the roles we play as socialized beings, a call to exploit our alienation, and an invitation to live in the fertile terrain between thought and action, reality and illusion, the ordinary and the strange. In Freire, Boal located dialogue, the belief that the marginalized are not marginal but central to the structure of society, an elaboration of the transitive and dialectical roots of social existence, and a pedagogy predicated on an ever-changing, performative reality. Boal shared with Freire an understanding of praxis-the inseparability of reflection and action, theory and practice-in pursuit of social change.
