As well as emerging as a permanent fixture of the Art World, Augusto Boal’s seminal Theatre of the Oppressed (1974) is now frequently employed for its tools for overcoming oppression in workshops and show-building, particularly in crisis zones. Nevertheless, it is seldom considered for its significant analysis of Aristotelian tragedy on which these tools are based – nor its inherent problematising of the role of director. In Boal, the director becomes a contradictory figure, one placed with the duty of care in facilitating particular conversations, charged with the responsibility of realising these, yet lacking the control to realise texts which appear. The “joker” from Theatre of the Oppressed is a flexible and multi-faceted figure – but can they deliver social change without the license of authorship? Or would authorship itself be the hindrance?
Such an analysis can be broadened into a treatment of power today: we charge figures of power with responsibility, without an understanding of their true agency. We lack comprehension of the new paradigms of power, having discarded previous frames in favour of quantitative measures such as allocation of resources, political tribes, or rhetorical features. Such a treatment of power reduces it to its outcomes, without considering the complications of its execution.
Taking the present moment as a political turning point from which to create a modernist “new” history, it is imperative to reconsider the art of direction in light of these new considerations, and how it may be re-formed. I propose to consider Boal together with Claire Bishop’s 2006 paper Collaboration and its Discontents to consider the ideology of new collaborations and alternatives to horizontality that acknowledge structural problems, whilst remaining open to the directorial authorship of an individual within a collaboration, with the aim of initiating social change.
Richard Pettifer (born 1983) is an Australian theatre director, critic, and writer, currently based in Berlin (Germany).
His directed productions include Stay for German Environment Bureau at United Nations COP 23, with Sonja Hornung (Theater Bonn, Germany, 2017), Melbourne Model: The Musical by Fregmonto Stokes (Union Theatre, Melbourne, 2008), Smudged (Brisbane Festival and La Mama Melbourne, 2010), and One Face, One Voice; One Habit and Two Persons (White Night Festival, Melbourne, 2015). As assistant director he participated on the staging of Verdi’s La Traviata (dir. Rachel McDonald, OZ Opera Australian tour, 2010), David Mamet’s Boston Marriage (dir. Aidan Fennessy. Melbourne Theatre Company, 2010), and Roland Schimmelpfennig’s For a Better World (dir. Daisy Noyes, Griffin Theatre Sydney, 2011). His work as a dramaturg includes Doublethink (dir. Alex Talamo, with Dig Collective, Melbourne Fringe, Footscray Arts Centre, PSI 2016) and Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Hoax Theatre, Bathway Theatre Network London, UK, 2016).
He presented conference papers at Baku International Theatre Conference 2014, Comedy and Critical Thought and Beckett and World Literature (University of Kent, 2016), REPETITION/S: Performance and Philosophy (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2016), When Theatre Meets Devising or Collective Creation (University of Art, Targu Mures, Romania, 2017), Theatre in Crisis in Europe (Royal Central School for Speech and Drama and Goethe Institute, London, 2018), and Resonance Summer School (European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy, 2018).
Richard’s critical writing has appeared in ArtSlant (USA), A Younger Theatre (UK), Spook (Australia), Exeunt (UK), Arta (Romania), Samizdat (Romania), Sirp (Estonia) and Arterritory (Latvia). In 2014–2018 he wrote features and criticism for festivals including FAKI Festival Zagreb (Croatia) and Draama (Estonia). Since 2013, he has been publishing Berlin and European theatre criticism at his writing platform Theaterstück.