Clara Deschodt works for a theatre of the oppressed organization in Barcelona. During workshops she works with different groups of society and together they try to make up different solutions of different conflict situations. What is The Theatre of the Oppressed and how can it help vulnerable members of the society?

Interview is created within the ‘We are not strangers’ project from organization Slovo 21. Seminars for future journalists were focused on immigrants and ethnic minorities. Within the project, participants tried a play called Světlana, which should put you in the shoes of a refugee from Ukraine. In Czechia you can also find The Centre of the Theatre of the Oppressed.

Showing oppression through your body

What is The Theatre of the Oppressed exactly? What is its purpose?

Basically, The Theatre of the Oppressed is a method that was created in the 1970s by Augusto Boal in Brazil. He was a theatre director and he created The Theatre of the Oppressed as a way to show the invisible oppression in our society through the body. It is a very activist type of theatre that helps rehearse life situations in which there is oppression. It tries to overcome them and find collective solutions to these situations. Quite complicated.

How does it differ from other forms of Interactive Theatre, larps or Invisible Theatre?

For instance the Invisible Theatre is a submethod of the big method Theatre of the Oppressed. Forum Theatre is also an interactive submethod.

Which kind of people do you work with? I suppose it is aimed at vulnerable parts of society?

That’s actually very interesting. Every time I talk about The Theatre of the Oppressed, people think it’s a method created for oppressed people like migrants, women, disabled people or minorities in general. But basically it’s for everyone and it’s also beneficial for privileged people. 

And maybe more beneficial for privileged people than for those oppressed. Within The Theatre of the Oppressed there are many exercises that make us realize our privileges, it shows that privilege depends a lot on a situation. 

I try to work from an intersectional point of view. You can be oppressed in one case and oppressor in another situation. It’s not black or white. Oppressed people know they are oppressed in some situations, but privileged ones usually don’t. Being aware of your own privileges can be life changing on how you connect with other people and you can transform your privilege into a means to fight injustice. 

So when working with oppressed ones, which minorities do you work with?

Within my organization – La Xixa – which is located in Barcelona, we create a lot of projects focused on regional or local impact. In one project we work with immigrants, in others with youth educators or youth workers, LGBTQ+ community and with women, but also elderly people. The theatre method can be applied to a wide range of groups. The interest of creating these activities is to gather and talk about traumas or about what they experienced.

Rehearsing situations helps realizing privileges

Which methods do you use, if you could describe it more closely?

In my organization we are using Forum Theatre. That means creating a play in which you stereotype the oppression and make it visible. First, you say to the group: ‘As a group, what have you been through that you want to fight? Or which struggle do you have in common?’ And the idea is to focus with the group on this theme. Then this group creates a play that really somehow shows some stereotype. For instance if it’s about racism, you aim to show an extremely harsh racist situation. 

Then you do the play, it can be between 10 and 30 minutes and then at some point, at the highest moment of conflict the play is stopped by a person called the Joker. The Joker does the interaction between the public and the stage. At this point the audience becomes what we call spect-actors. Someone from the public can go on the stage and replace one of the actors or actresses and try to find a solution for the problem. Rehearsing a situation on a stage makes you feel how hard it is to confront racism or masculinism.

Are there also professional actors or actresses on the stage?

Yeah, but they are not always professional actors. In our company there are just 5 or 6 professional actors. But for example right now I am creating a play that will be performed on Saturday with people that are not professionals at all. They just bring their life experience and what they want to share with the group and they perform a play. So you can do The Theatre of the Oppressed from a really amateur level till the professional one.

So you create the play with these oppressed people and they are the actors of the play?

Yeah. Within La Xixa there’s both. Recently we worked with education and youth workers and we taught them a bit about The Theatre of the Oppressed. So first they do the exercise themselves together and create a play and then, ideally, they should be able to apply this method within some groups they work with.

Creating conflict is the purpose of The Forum Theatre

How do people get to La Xixa, is it mostly organized programs in cooperation with NGOs or do people come for public workshops?

It depends. There are a lot of projects made with local organizations, for instance in one project La Xixa is cooperating with Casal dels Infants that works with immigrants. In another project we work with LGBTQ+ immigrants. And I think it makes more sense to connect with local organizations like this.

And do you offer the experience of The Theatre of the Oppressed also for the general public?

Yeah, there are maybe 5 events a week of different types, for example trainings, workshops, private or public presentations at schools, public spaces. Our professional actors also perform outside on streets.

If I get back to The Theatre of the Oppressed method itself – I can imagine that even if it’s just a fictional situation there is a risk of retraumatization, especially with the vulnerable people. Are you educated in some kind of crisis intervention psychology?

No. But maybe in some other places they are. I know it is a tough experience, but I always repeat in my interventions that I am not a therapist, I’m simply providing tools through this method. But it would be nice actually.

In my short experience it happened that people cried because they were touched, especially in exercises about privileges. My colleagues are saying that when you are doing the Joker – it’s actually my first time doing it on Saturday – you may face violent reaction from some individuals in the audience and create a very complex situation which is exactly the reason why  we do The Forum Theatre. The purpose is to create conflict and show the polarization around a single topic. For instance a situation can be racist for someone and normal for someone else. The Forum Theatre was created to make a collective space where you can talk about different perceptions of what you see.

Migrants link with others and better their Spanish

If we focus on immigrants, how is The Theatre of the Oppressed helpful specifically for them?

I think it is useful in many ways. When we create a Forum Theatre play which is about immigration topic, which is one of the topics that pop up a lot because our society is so structured by racism and anti-immigration reactions, The Forum itself helps spect-actors see how normalized microaggressions affect the daily life of some people. Because we just don’t see it, or we just try not to, because it’s more comfortable for us. And see it in a play, where it starts with a  micro aggression and then it grows and grows to a very big point of conflict where the play is stopped. It helps empathise with realities that are very present in our society. Even more, it shows how hard it is to fight within a society which is structurally racist and not welcoming for migrants at all.

So that was an example of introducing immigration topic to the public, but do you work with migrants themselves?

Yes, my work is both ways. If we perform a play about migration, it can be very powerful. It can make people realize how privileged they and how tough the reality of oppressed people’s fight is. How can they be an ally in this cause, which character do they identify with on the stage? The ally of the oppressed, the ally of the oppressor or even the oppressor him/herself? For instance, I myself grew up in France, I didn’t have any problems fighting for papers so far, I feel privileged on this topic because I don’t really fear the police. And I can use this privilege when a situation of oppression regarding migrations or racism issues occurs.

Then we also work with migrants. There is one project in La Xixa that has been running for maybe one year and the goal was to gather a group of 15 migrants, both men and women, that are in Spain for a year or two and create a play about their stories. They created it for one year and then they presented it four times in different spots. In this way we used theatre to make them talk about their trauma through the body or other way of expression like singing. It helped them to have a regular activity every Tuesday that links them with other people, integrates them in some space where they can better their level of communication in Spanish.

Take privileges into account and raise your voice against oppression

You mentioned you are an immigrant yourself, coming to Barcelona from France. Does this experience help you in your work, to have empathy with this group of people?

No, I think my migration was very easy. I got my papers in a month, and I got an apartment very quickly. And I also don’t experience racism on a daily basis because I am from France, I already speak Spanish and I am white. They don’t have papers so they have shitty jobs for months or years, they can have problems with the mafia. So I would feel guilty to identify myself with them.

Do you follow some of the participants‘ stories? Do you have any feedback from their side?

Yes, I am following some stories , but from far, so I don’t really want to storytell them with my words. But for example in the group I am working with now, there are two people, from Brazil and Argentina. I didn’t have time to do the feedback, but I can feel they are learning and I am learning a lot.

That was my next question – how does The Theatre of the Oppressed method affect or teach yourself?

I am learning a lot about my privilege, about how to react, how to confront microaggressions in real life. But generally it’s a good method to find collective solutions, to act in public space. Many times we don’t want to disturb the public space, we don’t want to raise our voice. It’s a powerful tool to be able to analyze the situation and then to react. Taking into account that you have some privileges and someone else doesn’t.