Arguably all theatre is political, as playwrights compose from a particular point of view and the theatre they create depicts a time, place and society affected by given circumstances. Western theatre that is notably political began with the satires of Aristophanes in Ancient Greece. The modern movement was forged in Germany from the 1920s by…
Guerrilla theatre is a form of theatrical protest popularised in America in the 1960s by the San Fransisco Mime Troupe. Commedia dell’Arte and satire were actually the group’s principal modes of performance, not mime. At its purest, guerrilla theatre was left-wing political activism in the form of avant-garde performance in non-traditional spaces such as public parks and sidewalks.
The Theatre of the Oppressed describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1960s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theorist Paulo Freire. Boal’s techniques use theatre as means of promoting social and political change. In the Theatre…