By Christos Karystinos

Anarchists and theater of the oppressed

Here I would argue that anarchists could be considered as oppressed in our modern society and I would like to present some arguments on that. Anarchists, no matter what type of anarchists, are fundamentally opposed to power and those who hold it. This is a principal that have stayed in the core of anarchist ideology since the first anarchist theorists until modern texts criticizing the state. If we define injustice, as an unbalance of power, as many times I do during workshops, because injustice is a very loose term, then we would see in order to be an oppressor you have to have power over the oppressed. Fighting oppression becomes fighting power, fighting the power, becomes fighting the oppression. I think this meeting point between oppressed theory and anarchist theory, it is very important.

During my last seminar together with an anarchist group in Ireland, I realised how much groups like that are in need of new tools for their actions and how much ToO fits this need. In a world ruled by marketing laws, where even political groups should “advertise” their actions and their existence, new forms of struggle are needed to compete the capitalist ever-growing affect on people. Forum theater (and ToO) is a very vibrant and attractive way to involve people into a political forum / debate and make them doubt about their current beliefs. Theater was used in ancient Greece by politicians to form the public’s opinion and in a similar way modern anarchists could use it as a tool of social/political intervention.

However the difference between forum theater and political theater is that forum theater does not show the right way to the audience but only asks the question where should we go. This is element of forum theater that attracted me so much, as it really suits the anti-hierarchical way of thinking because the group playing the play come as equal to the audience and asks a sincere question that themselves cannot answer. This honesty on behalf of the theater group, or on behalf of an anarchist group that uses theater, is the key to experience the utopia of a non-hierarchical world now. The moment that the story has finished and altogether, audience and group searches for the collective solution to the problem is the moment a connection is created between the people. The specific story of the forum play, which if analysed connects with the general common oppression, is actually a sharing, that is put on stage and creates a question that the spect-actors, almost magically, feel urgent to answer. Because if this question is not answered, the reality will remain as oppressive as it was before the play. This is the motive that moves the spectators.

Consequently, I could argue that forum play is a call to direct spontaneous action too, one of the fundamental values of anarchists and activists. Direct because the oppression seems urgent and needs to be faced now and the only way is through direct theater action in the forum, and real direct action in reality. Spontaneous because it is triggered by the emotions created by the view of the oppression( in the model). Spontaneous but not individualistic action because the audience is there to comment on your strategy and build a collective strategy build on each others interventions in the forum. Through spontaneous direct actions you can partly face the oppressor and in the end what is left is to organise ourselves, in order to systematically face this oppression, create the organisation needed to destroy the oppressive system once and for all. This is what is actually happening in the end of the forum play, where all the spontaneous actions are summarized and ask ourselves how they can now be implemented in real life.

Joker in a non-hierarchical context

Joker is a controversial role in theater forum. I had a discussion lately with a practitioner from Afghanistan which claimed that theater of the oppressed is also theater of the oppressors because it creates an oppressive context and an example of it is the role of the joker in the forum play. She claimed that the Joker setting the rules in the play partially oppresses the audience. Of course, I totally oppose this opinion, however it is a very useful argument as it gave me food for thought for the role of the joker. Some questions created out of this conversation is: are the rules of the forum oppressive and is the person who implements these rules oppressive?

Answering the first question, I would say that forum theater respects the spect-actor and his/her opinion because his/her opinion is actually the driver of the forum, the joker is only there to ask the right questions. If it wasn’t for the audience’s contribution, the forum cannot happen. The only rule that restricts the spect-actor’s actions is the magic solution rule, which states that we cannot substitute the oppressor or the ally but only the oppressed, because he/she is the one who wants to change the status quo. This rule clearly derives from real life and hardly can be disputed. The statement of magical solution is deeply philosophical and mirrors the collective wisdom of the oppressed through history. It breaks the stereotype of assignment of our salvation to somebody else and brings the responsibility to change this society back to the oppressed themselves. The ones who have the problem, are the ones willing to solve it, the ones creating it, they have no motive to change it because they have profit on keeping the status quo. So taking into consideration that the rule of magic solution is not restricting but actually help the spectators, we could argue that the spect-actor is free to express his/her ideas with only restriction the one of time, on which joker is there to help that everybody have appropriate time to express themselves.

On the second question, the answer is it depends on the character and the training of the joker. If a person is authoritarian in his/her life, then it will also be authoritarian and oppressive in a forum play towards the audience. However, a facilitator and a joker is there only to serve the needs of the audience and not to impose his/her wills on them. In our groups, we implement a rotation in the role of the joker, so that there is no power created by the same person holding this role and at the same time everybody gets to share the responsibility, which comes with the power of the role of a joker. At the same time, the facilitation of the joker is subject to the group and should be a minimum agreement about some facilitation topics before a joker goes on stage. These two methods, secure that a joker will not be oppressive and at the same time is align with the group’s spirit.