ABSTRACT
Although hi s theatre pr iv i leges the body, Boal has not theorized the performing body in any continuous or systematic way. My project here is to examine what he has said on the subject and situate his thought in relation to that of other performance theorist-practitioners, particularly Bertolt Brecht and Herbert Blau, and also Michael Kirby and Jerzy Grotowski. In so doing, I shall treat Boal’s scattered and fragmentary comments on the body as theoretical texts even though they are, in the main, occasional notes and sets of instructions whose intentions are more pragmatic and explanatory than theoretical. My intention here is not to hold Boal to a standard of theoretical r igor inappropriate to the nature of his wr itings, but rather to treat these writings as accesses to important issues concerning the body in per for mance impl ied and engaged in h i s work. Boa l ’ s fragmentary theorization of the body, and the affinities with Blau and Brecht i t reveal s , per mit us ins ights into Boal ’ s bas ic conception of theatre and the means by which he sees the theatre as serving an ideological function. I have taken two central moments in Boal’s account of the history of the body in theatre as starting points for two separate, but related, discussions.
