ABSTRACT
The emancipation of the oppressed is highly counterintuitive. The task of Theatre of the Oppressed would then be to rescue forms of popular culture, to develop that emancipatory good sense, and to stop the reproduction of oppression. The erosion of communist party apparatuses around the world seems to have created a political environment favorable to the idea of an emancipation that would be done against the traditional mediations of politics. Politics is a relatively autonomous instance, capable of mediating the cohabitation of alterities that are not antagonistic contradictions. The subject of emancipation is described quite variably in the writings of Augusto Boal. In his first book, Popular Techniques of Latin American Theatre, this subject is the “People,” which “includes only those who rent their workforce.” When Augusto Boal describes his experience of Legislative Theatre in Rio de Janeiro, he points out the importance of the festivals in which different groups meet to share problems and find mechanisms of solidarity.
