by Jen Rooney
This year I celebrated Martin Luther King Day by joining about 80 high school students and adults in a Theatre of the Oppressed retreat on nonviolence.
Participants identify oppressions and act out power struggles in Theatre of the Oppressed exercises. Augusto Boal of Brazil created this way of inviting people to find alternative, nonviolent responses to oppressive situations or institutions. Oppression occurs when one party has power and the other does not.
Retreat leader Kevin Lally tells us how a boyhood experiment that failed motivated Boal to develop the Theatre technique. As a boy, Boal found chicken eggs. In order to set the baby chickens free, he cracked the tops of each of the eggs. The chickens, only partially developed, did not survive.
This lesson stuck with Boal and made him realize one cannot liberate another person. But one can create space for that liberation to happen.
Lally introduces the process. “The Theatre” is not a building, but a group of people involved in acting, viewing, and thinking about breaking an oppression.
Who are “the oppressed?” Lally asks us to think of the oppressed we see every day. We name young people, females, immigrants.
Lally asks the participants to join a group that will explore the oppression that bothers them the most. Each group has an hour to prepare a one to two minute dramatization for the other participants.
STEP 1: Create a Scenario
The largest group chooses to tackle sexism. Student assistant, Elizabeth “Biff” Keough, works with the group to create the who, what, and where of the presentation. They decide to enact the blatant sexual harassment girls receive from boys in high school.
Biff directs them to create a scenario that allows everyone to have a role. The group decides that an average high school classroom will make a good setting.
STEP 2: Dialogue
Biff begins writing down some of the words of oppression she hears every day at school. She encourages others to share what they hear. “The key to making the scenario feel real,” says Biff, “is to use actions and language that make everyone uncomfortable and the situation believable.”
Soon other group members are contributing their own stories and words. Phrases like “you’re so hot” create uncomfortable pauses and giggling. In spite of this, or possibly because of it, Biff suggests using a technique sometimes used by the Theatre of the Oppressed: gender role change. The males will take the female roles and the females will portray the males.
STEP 3: Taking Roles
Biff will play “Luke,” the ringleader who thinks degrading women is appropriate and funny, the guy other guys follow. The group points out not all guys harass girls. Many of them don’t say anything and wish they could stand up to Luke.
Equally realistic, many girls tune out the catcalls and innuendo. However, the group also develops the character of “Tatiana,” a girl who is abused at home, who can’t ignore the verbal attacks because she is on alert at all times. Another character, “Shandra,” loves the attention and aggravates the rest of the girls by egging the boys on.
What will the teacher do? In this scenario the teacher character decides to be anxious and too stressed out with the lesson plan to pay attention to the negative remarks.
STEP 4: Set the Stage
The group creates a classroom scene by moving chairs into three rows. The group practices the scene.
STEP 5: Action
The students enter the classroom with the boys casually tossing out sexually demeaning remarks to the girls. The teacher ignores this, begins the lesson, turns his back to the class of actors, and starts writing on the imaginary chalk board, creating another opportunity for the boys to make lewd comments and gestures.
“Tatiana, you are so fine. Quit pretending you don’t hear me,” Luke taunts.
As directed, the presentation lasts about two minutes, giving a good sample of what sexual harassment is like for high school girls every day.
STEP 6: Re-action & change
The sexism group informs the audience they are going to perform the skit again, but this time the audience can stop the scene. By clapping his/her hands together loudly once, an audience member stops the action on stage and physically takes the place of one of the actors.
It’s time to experiment with what changes the oppressive dynamic and what doesn’t.
One replacement actor switches spots with one of the quiet boys and stands up to the harassment. It definitely surprises Luke and his friends and stops the harassment momentarily. Then, the harassers turn against the quiet boy and start picking on him.
On the next run through, another replacement actor changes roles with the teacher and changes the seating arrangement to separate Luke and his groupies. The entire retreat group discusses the outcome. Some feel it will be help, while others feel it is a short term band-aid for an overwhelming problem.
Does anything get solved?
“The goal is to re-create an oppressive situation with a different outcome,” Biff reminds us. In the sexism skit and discussions about it, a few main thoughts surface.
- The key to stopping harassment among the class is stopping Luke, the ringleader.
- The teacher needs more support from the administration and policies. He is overwhelmed and doesn’t want to take on another problem.
Sexism is an issue of respecting and treating everyone equally. The boys must be convinced the girls are their equals.
Other groups portray other scenarios of oppression. For example, a small group presents a situation in which two teens are at the mall, each with a younger sibling. One of the little kids needs to use the restroom. The teens ask for the restroom key. However, the mall has a rule that teens cannot use their restrooms without a supervising adult present.
Teens have feelings about this rule, which many have encountered. The actors and replacement actors invent ways to shift the balance of power.
When all the skits are done, we evaluate the day and results. Students and adults alike appreciated working with each other. Everyone left the retreat day with the same challenge—to develop new nonviolent ways to dismantle oppression.
