ABSTRACT
PRACTITIONERS OF THE CASE STUDIES described in this section abandon formal separation of actors and spectators and insert performance into everyday life. The essayists here suggest that such direct, individual experience can lead to political change. Augusto Boal, the first contributor in the section, has contrasted what can be achieved at mass political rallies with the one-to-one contact that his invisible theatre’ engenders:
Big rallies are for people who are already convinced. You make a manifestation of force and many people see that you are strong, and by seeing the support those who are undecided may join along. The other way, like doing invisible theatre, reaches very few people. But it modifies people's opinions. That man whose opinion was changed goes home and talks to his family, and he goes to a bar and talks to his friends …
(Cohen-Cruz 1994: 232)