Under Pressure, the Newsletter of the International Theatre of the Oppressed

The quarterly newsletter Under Pressure dedicates this issue to work in prison in four different projects: in Brazilian and Croatian prisons, using 'Forum Theatre' technique; in Italy, through the Giolli Association's work to transform prisons from punitive to educational institutions; and in Dutch and German prisons through 'Formaat'.


In her article "Humanizing Humanity: Theater of the Oppressed in Prisons", Bárbara Santos defines the Theater of the Oppressed (TO) as a theatrical method that "looks for the physical and intellectual de-mechanisation of its practitioners, ...through the promotion of a creative and democratic dialogue aiming at the transformation of the reality." Practitioners strive to "develop socio-cultural projects...stimulating discussion and the searching of alternatives to solve concrete problems related to...urban and domestic violence, the prison system, among others.... The proposal is to inspire those groups to dramatize their daily problems, in order to understand them and to look for alternative solutions through the dialogue with people, who live similar problems....The project of the Theater of the Oppressed in Prisons proposes the creation of propositive and democratic spaces of Dialogue among the diverse social actors of the prison system and between them and the society... to look for the concrete means to provoke its transformation."

Prisoners and penitentiary employees in this Brazilian initiative dramatise their lives in relation to the jail by producing 'Forum Theatre' plays, scenarios intended to encourage the practice of dialogue, in order to humanise conversation and "break the pattern of confrontational monologues". In this particular technique, the presentation is based on the oppressed and the oppressor characters starting a conflict defending their interests. In the confrontation, the oppressed fails, and the audience is invited by the ‘Joker' (the TO facilitator) to get into the scene to look for alternatives for the dramatised conflict.


This theatre technique "encourages those involved to put their past and present situations on stage and invent the desired future". For example, during a public event presented by prisoners in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, "[c]itizens, solicitors and penitentiary system employees, representatives of the organized civil society, public defenders and relatives analyzed and presented alternatives for the story of an ill prisoner who died because of the negligence of the penitentiary agent." After the discussion, permission was asked and granted for prisoners to sit with family members in the audience, demonstrating an immediate action based on the principles of humanisation of those placed in adversarial roles.

In the article, "Prison, Oppressive World, Can Be a Place of Liberation?", Roberto Mazzini of the Giolli Association analyses the possible points of theatre intervention in the Italian criminal system, where creative theatre might humanise the process of justice or injustice. At points identified as filters between the offence and prison, the author suggests some of the following theatre actions to create a social, political, and cultural climate for de-penalisation:

1. Legislative Theatre intervention to change laws to reduce or remove detention by inventing alternatives to jail as restorative justice sentences.
2. Newspaper Theatre intervention to denounce police stereotyping of certain people or neighbourhoods and to work on the roots of stereotyping in the media.
3. Trial intervention through an alliance with the most progressive judges and journalists to start a counter-information campaign about prison and crime, recommending support for Gozzini’s Law, legislation which strengthened the educational and control aspects of prison using awards and punishment, and analysing the current urban insecurity.

The author explores the possibility of interventions in the form of prison workshops, including building scenarios about prisoners leaving with a future in society, and of plays outside of prison to explore: insecurity as a societal issue; the penal system and social exclusion; and analysis of media reporting on issues that may influence stereotyping, such as immigration. He hopes to bring the "inside of the prison out" through encouraging people to volunteer in the prisons, to tour the prisons, to document life in prison, and to seek mass media support for de-penalisation and moving prisons forward as educational institutions.

In the article "When Oppression Leads to Crime: Working in Women’s Prisons in the Netherlands and Europe", Luc Opdebeeck, Artistic Director of ‘Formaat, workplace for Participatory Drama’, discusses the techniques used in a 6 - 8 session series of theatre workshops in which the prisoners ultimately conceive of a main character to write about. He discusses the prototype male character conceived by men in prison as a perpetrator of a crime of passion, while women prisoners tend to conceive of a character who has a history of being a victim of men and is falsely accused of a crime, but finds safety in accepting a prison sentence. This project uses Blagg!, a synthesis of TO and cognitive psychology developed by the Drama Department of the University of Manchester in the early 1990’s, as well as James Thompson's book Drama Workshops for Anger Management and Offending Behaviour (1999), exercises from the Rainbow of Desire and the Geese Theatre Handbook, and moral dilemma discussion method, as well as a special participatory evaluation technique.

In "Few Forum Theatre Workshops in Croatian Prisons", Ivana Marijancic writes about the work of the Finnish non-governmental organisation (NGO) The Helsinki Committee, which has worked in Croatia on human rights education, involving drama as a way of working in its “schools of human rights” for youth and for adults. The prison work she describes was initiated by the youth-student group of the Croatian Helsinki Committee first to collect books for prison libraries and then to run ‘Forum Theatre’ workshops in prisons. Workshops were run in four Croatian prisons; three were run by the author. She describes her working process in three parts: building trust through talk and simple games; moving to 'Image Theatre' to touch on key problems; and then developing stories into 'Forum Theatre' scenarios. She describes the Forum scenarios that resulted from seven 2-hour meetings and the function of the audience of both women prisoners and journalists in searching for solutions to the dilemmas proposed in the scenarios.