A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics

Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is often referred to as a body of theatrical techniques. Yet this does not do justice to the rich contribution of Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, TO's founder and innovator of over 40 years. A Boal Companionexplores performative and cultural ideas and practices that inform Boal's work by putting them alongside those from related disciplines. Contributors in this anthology put TO into dialogue with complexity theory, Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, race theory, feminist performance art, Deleuze and Guattari , and liberation psychology -- to name just a few. In this way, kinship between Boal's project and multiple fields including social psychology, ethics, biology, comedy, trauma studies, and political science is made visible. This collection not only expands the knowledge of TO practitioners and scholars but invites into TO those readers unfamiliar with Boal's work whose primary interests lie in one of the related disciplines addressed in theseessays. The ideas generated throughout the collection will: Expand readers' understanding of TO as a complex, interdisciplinary, multi-vocal body of philosophical discourses Provide a variety of lenses through which to practice and critique TO Make explicit the relationships between TO and other bodies of work.