ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 Being approximate: the Ganser syndrome and beyond describes the ingenious behavior of a group of late nineteenth-century prisoners on remand during (very suspicious) psychological examinations by prison doctors. The inmates’ responses – purposeful “missing the mark” and “talking past the point” – resemble the distortions of logic that characterize clown acts, vaudeville routines, linguistic punning, and trickery. Their crafty approximations reflect Boal’s notion of resonance – fundamental to the Joker System – and provide an off-the-stage example of how ambiguity and indirectness function as tools of nonoppositional resistance in the face of harmful diagnostic conventions.
