Editor’s note: The full title of this paper is:

Acting OUT: Using Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed Techniques to Dramatize Homophobic Incidents in Catholic Schools

Tonya D. Callaghan

Canadian Committee of Students in Education

29 May 2006

Abstract

I wrote four dramatic skits to enact how homophobia functions in Canadian Catholic schools. The skits are modeled after the “Theatre of the Oppressed” technique, also known as “Popular Theatre,” developed by Brazilian activist Augusto Boal, in the 1960s. While the political oppression that Boal was addressing is not comparable to the homophobia I am highlighting in these skits, I believe that his technique can be applied to all kinds of oppressive situations. Because our social reality is constructed, it can also be reconstructed. My hope is that these interactive dramatic skits will be a rehearsal for future action.

(Note: This version of the paper has left out the skit based on the Marc Hall case because of its familiarity and to shorten the piece for this medium.)

The goal of today’s presentation is to familiarize you with the types of homophobic incidents that can take place in Canadian Catholic schools through the use of dramatic skits modeled after Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed” technique. I will provide a brief history of the technique, comment on how it can be applied to the problem of homophobia in Canadian Catholic schools, and explain how the technique works. Before each skit is acted out, I will describe the setting of the scene so that you may begin to visualize the problem and imagine ways that you can participate in the role-play with your own solutions.

Theatre of the Oppressed

I first encountered the Theatre of the Oppressed form of participatory theatre at the third annual “Agape Education and Culture” conference. Agape is a focus group for the study of sex, sexual, and gender differences in education and culture within the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. It is designed to meet the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited, trans-identified, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) and allied staff, faculty, and students. I was particularly drawn to this form of expressive problem solving because I had become frustrated by the number of times family members, friends, and colleagues told me they could not see any of the homophobia – subtle and overt – operating all around them. I felt that if certain scenes could be acted out in front of educational stakeholders, then maybe they would start to see how homophobia functions in schools, and that this would hopefully lead to a decrease in homophobic incidents.

Brazilian director and Workers’ Party activist, Augusto Boal, developed the Theatre of the Oppressed method, also known as “Popular Theatre,” in the 1960s. Dr. Diane Conrad is well known at the University of Alberta for her use of Popular Theatre as a qualitative research method that is both participatory and performative. Popular Theatre is the term Dr. Conrad prefers to use to talk about the politically motivated type of participatory theatre alternately referred to and/or closely allied to Augusto Boal’s seminal text, Theatre of the Oppressed (1974/1979). According to Prentki & Selman (2000), Popular Theatre is a “process of theatre which deeply involves specific communities in identifying issues of concern, analyzing current conditions and causes of a situation, identifying points of change, and analyzing how change could happen” (p. 8 ).

Popular Theatre both grew out of and developed alongside the popular education movement that was taking place in the 1960s and 70s under the direction of Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire, who is now commonly recognized as one of popular education’s most powerful proponents (Conrad, 2004). Freire wrote his influential and oft-cited text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) during a time of extreme political repression in Brazil. His ideas of liberatory literacy education involved not only reading the word, but also reading the world through the development of critical consciousness or what he called, “concientization.”

Paulo Freire’s colleague, Augusto Boal, had tremendous faith in the power of theatre, believing that, “Theatre is a form of knowledge [that] can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future rather than just waiting for it.” (Boal, 1992, p. xxxi). For Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed was a weapon for oppressed people to use in the hope of changing their social reality (Conrad, 2004). It was a theatre for the people, by the people – what Boal (1974/1979) called “a rehearsal of revolution” (p. 155). Brazil, at the time Boal was writing, was under military rule and was suffering from political struggles stemming from both the military regime and the Brazilian elite. While the political oppression that Boal was hoping to address is in no way comparable to the homophobia that I am highlighting in these skits, I believe that Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques can be applied to all kinds of oppressive situations.

Homophobic Incidents in Canadian Catholic Schools

As an English teacher within a Catholic school system, I witnessed a destructive heterosexist culture that I felt needed to be changed. In preparation for these theatrical presentations, I set out to write a series of ethnographic vignettes (Saldana, 1999) based on homophobic situations in Catholic schools.

These ethnographic vignettes evolved into dramatic skits modeled after Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1974/1979) method, which involves enacting everyday challenges faced by ordinary people and practicing new, creative, and non-violent ways of confronting these challenges. For the purpose of this publication I will restrict my discussion to three scenes from my own experiences.

It is my hope that when the dramatic skits are set in the hyper-heteronormative and homophobic environment of the Catholic school, one can begin to recognize homophobia and find ways to stop it. If you are already quite familiar with examples of homophobia in school settings, then perhaps these skits will offer you some new ways to respond to this type of discrimination. Ideally, you will see that like drama, our social reality is constructed and can be reconstructed (Conrad, 2005).

The scenes represent what I consider to be significant moments of homophobia in Catholic schools that I thought would best assist you in seeing, or further understanding, this often-unrecognized problem. My hope is that when the skits are performed viewers will choose to participate by coming in to the scene and offering creative ways to solve the problem.

How it Works

Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed technique is a dramatic skit involving an oppressive character and an oppressed character. Actors (or non-actors) perform an initial run of the skit in front of an audience, trying as much as possible to underscore the tension between the two characters. Once the audience is familiar with the problem being portrayed, any member of the audience who feels that he or she could reduce the tension by acting differently can come into the scene and take the place of the oppressed character. By taking part in the skit, or by simply watching the scene unfold, audience members can explore and evaluate their own and others’ perceptions of the problem.

Theatre of the Oppressed Scenario One: The Banning of Homosexual Books

Background: The Coordinating Teacher for St. Mary’s English Department has just come back to the school from a Bob Edwards literary luncheon where the distinguished guest speaker, Canadian novelist Timothy Findley, spoke openly about his life with his long-term partner, Bill Whitehead. She expresses her disgust at how a perfectly civilized luncheon could be so easily ruined by this “homosexual outburst.” She, for one, is never going to teach Findley’s novel, The Wars, again. In fact, she’s tired of having to field phone calls from upstanding Catholic parents who want to know why the novel is on the reading list. She can’t think of a good reason why it’s there and proposes that the entire department stop teaching it along with “that other homosexual novel,” Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.

Setting: It’s 3:10 and the last class of the day has just been let out. English teachers are returning to the English Department with their materials to file away and begin the process of packing up for the end of the day. The Coordinating Teacher whirls in, red-cheeked from the freshness of the outside air, embroiled in a heated discussion with one of the other English teachers who accompanied her to the luncheon. Five out of the six members of the department are now present in the second floor English department office – some are seated at the large oval table facing the three large windows overlooking trees and a park below, while others are arranging papers at their own surrounding desks.

Some possible arguments for the Coordinating Teacher:

• It’s just SICK! What makes him think he can go on publicly about his disgusting lifestyle? I shouldn’t have to be subjected to that at a literary luncheon for God’s sake!

• I don’t care if he’s an internationally celebrated Canadian author who has won numerous literary awards! This kind of material is just not suitable for children, even if the International Baccalaureate says so.

• Our Catholic parents have a right to question what their child is reading. Heavens, I even question it. It’s against our Catholic teachings to have a book on the curriculum that has a homosexual character and homosexual sex scenes in it.

• I don’t care if Alberta Education sanctioned it, I don’t approve of this book and I don’t want any one of you teaching it anymore either. That goes for that other homosexual book with those two gay women that some of you are teaching, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café – I don’t want any of you teaching that any more. In my capacity as Coordinating Teacher, I forbid it!

• If any of you decide to teach it anyway and a parent complains, you’re on your own. This department won’t support you, the administration won’t support you and without those two vital supports, downtown will never support you. It’s just not worth it to teach such controversial books in our Catholic schools.

The two presenters play out an improvised skit for the audience with the oppressed character having very few creative ideas in terms of how to respond to the oppressive character’s overpowering and authoritative statements.

The excerpt below depicts what I consider one of the more successful impromptu dramatic skits that developed after one of the audience members yelled “Stop!” and came into the improv scene in the role of the oppressed character. In this scene, the oppressor is the Coordinating Teacher (CT), and the oppressed character is the Teacher.

The Banning of Homosexual Books

CT: It’s just SICK! What makes him think he can go on publicly about his disgusting lifestyle? I shouldn’t have to be subjected to that at a literary luncheon for God’s sake!

Teacher: Well, you know, Timothy Findley is an internationally celebrated Canadian author who has won numerous literary awards. That’s probably why he’s on both the International Baccalaureate and the Alberta Education sanctioned reading lists.

CT: I don’t care if he’s an internationally celebrated Canadian author! This kind of material is just not suitable for children, even if the International Baccalaureate says so.

Teacher: Clearly the master teachers who sat on the selection committee for literary reading lists did not think his books were unsuitable for children. What, exactly, is unsuitable?

CT: Well, I don’t remember. It’s not important. There’s a gay character in that book, and it’s just not right. Our Catholic parents have a right to question what their child is reading. Heavens, I even question it. It’s against our Catholic teachings to have a book on the curriculum that has a homosexual character and homosexual sex scenes in it.

Teacher: But Alberta Education has sanctioned it and, since we are mandated to teach the curriculum prescribed by the provincial government, I guess that means we can teach The Wars.

CT: I don’t care if Alberta Education sanctioned it, as a Catholic school we don’t have to adhere to everything that Alberta Education puts out there. I don’t approve of this book and I don’t want any one of you teaching it anymore either. That goes for that other homosexual book with those two gay women that some of you are teaching, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café – I don’t want any of you teaching that any more. In my capacity as Coordinating Teacher, I forbid it!

Analysis

In this scene, the oppressed character, Teacher, calmly counters the emotional arguments put forth by the oppressive character, Coordinating Teacher. The success of this scene lies not so much in what the Teacher says but what she doesn’t say. The Teacher manages to stay calm and make a few pointed statements, while the CT gets increasingly more flustered and ends up making some unsupportable statements. The fact that the CT cannot provide an example from any of Findley’s books that she deems unsuitable for children, shows that sometimes calls to censor texts are based on hearsay and not on actual knowledge of the text itself.

When the CT states that Catholic schools do not have to adhere to everything the provincial government writes in the curriculum, she is drawing attention to the selectiveness with which some publicly funded Catholic schools deliver the curriculum. This skit effectively enacts a more subtle form of homophobia and invites the audience to review their own beliefs about censoring texts that are taught in schools. The skit also underscores the problem of some Catholic schools simply sidestepping certain details of the provincial curriculum when those details pose problems for Catholic beliefs.

Theatre of the Oppressed Scenario Two: Lesbian Student Gets Bullied

Background: Jamie is a 17-year-old student who is trying to be out as a lesbian in her Catholic high school. She wears boys’ clothes, sports a spiky haircut, keeps her wallet in her back pocket attached to a chain on her belt loop, has her lip pierced, carries around her skateboard and wears lesbian-identified buttons on her military jacket lapel. She has been enduring weekly and sometimes daily bullying about her sexuality for the past two months. The bullies call her names and whisper sexual things they would like to do to her when they see her in the school hallways and have lately taken to following her around after school, taunting her and even occasionally throwing rocks at her. She has finally had it when the bullies run up to her after school, shove her, grab her skateboard and throw it in the river. She decides to go to the principal to report the bullying.

Setting: It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and Jamie has finally got up enough courage to go in to speak to the principal about what has been happening. Luckily for Jamie, the principal is available. Jamie is ushered into the small, oblong-shaped office where mounds of paper work slightly obscure the principal who is leaving a message for someone on the phone.

The principal looks at the student and can’t recall ever seeing her before. She senses immediately that this student is upset and waves Jamie over to the round table in the corner as she finishes off her recorded message.

Some possible arguments for the principal:

• You say you’ve been experiencing this sort of bullying for two months or so. Why have you waited so long to do anything about it?

• It sounds to me as though the majority of your experiences at the hands of these bullies have taken place off of school property … I’m afraid I cannot act on your behalf because the school does not have any authority off of school property.

• You say that these bullies have been calling you names like “dyke” and “queer” and that they tell you that you are going to burn in hell. Can you think of any reason why they might be saying this?

• Have you thought of maybe changing your appearance so that you fit in a little bit more to our school climate and perhaps don’t incite this kind of harassment?

• Do your parents, for example, know that you come to school dressed in this way?

• Jamie, are you a practicing lesbian? You know the Catholic Church says that homosexuals do have a right to exist but that you are called to celibacy and since you’ve told me you are living with your … “girlfriend” … I’m afraid you are not honouring your Catholicity. If you are choosing not to honour your Catholicity, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you.

As in the previous dramatic skit, the two actors/presenters play out an improvised skit for the audience with the oppressed character not having much of a response to the oppressive character’s domineering presence and overpowering statements.

The excerpt below depicts what I consider two of the more successful impromptu dramatic skits that developed after audience members yelled “Stop!” and came into the improv scene in the role of the oppressed character. In this scene, the oppressor is the Principal and the oppressed character is the Student.

Lesbian Student Gets Bullied (I)

Principal: As I was saying, I’m afraid I cannot act on your behalf because the school does not have any authority off of school property.

Student: But last week you wrote an article for the newsletter about the dangers of stalking after one of our students followed around another student from our school, after the last dismissal bell, well beyond the limits of school property.

Principal: Well, I can’t discuss the details of that case. It was a pretty particular case. But normally we don’t handle matters that take place off of school property. Anyway, you say that these bullies have been calling you names like “dyke” and “queer” and that they tell you that you are going to burn in hell. Can you think of any reason why they might be saying this?

Student: Maybe because I’m a lesbian?

Principal: Have you thought of maybe changing your appearance so that you fit in a little bit more to our school climate and perhaps don’t incite this kind of harassment?

Student: Have you thought of maybe changing your policies so that you can make my school experience just a little bit safer?

Lesbian Student Gets Bullied (II)

Principal: Do your parents, for example, know that you come to school dressed in this way?

Student: Why should it matter how I dress? Our student handbook says that we are not allowed to wear any clothing with offensive language or messages and, since I hate clothes with messages, I never wear such things. What does what I wear have to do with me getting bullied?

Principal: Jamie, are you a practicing lesbian?

Student: Well, ma’am, I used to be practicing but now I’m close to perfect.

Analysis

In the first of these two scenes, the oppressive character, Principal, engages in evasive stalling practices common to administrators who would rather avoid than solve a problem at hand. When the principal subtly suggests that the student might have brought on the bullying herself because of the way she dresses, we see the classic “blame the victim” tactic. This scene echoes what family and friends often tell lesbians and gay men who are just coming out: “If you could just tone down the gayness of your appearance, no one would have to really know you’re gay, and then you would be safe from homophobic treatment.”

The second scene contains a clever rejoinder on the part of the student, which caused the audience to erupt with laughter. I chose these two scenes because both contain increasing levels of sarcastic humour on the part of the oppressed character, Student. This suggests that the audience was becoming more and more emboldened by the Theatre of the Oppressed skits and started to suggest new, creative, and even humorous ways to confront the challenge posed by the oppressive character.

Theatre of the Oppressed Scenario Three: Lesbian Teacher in Catholic School Refused Permission to Participate in Pro-Gay Safe and Caring Schools Project

Background: A high school English teacher has been invited by the Society for Safe and Caring Schools to write a series of lesson plans designed to combat discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation. She learned of the opportunity to write the lesson plans from her service to the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity committee for the Alberta Teachers’ Association where she is out as a lesbian. She was invited to write the lesson plans expressly because she is a lesbian. Unfortunately, the workshop for the lesson plan writing is scheduled for a Friday, which will require missing a school day in order to attend. The English teacher decides to inform the Guidance Counsellor in her school who is responsible for their local high school Society for Safe and Caring Schools to see if she can get some support for the leave. The Guidance Counsellor is impressed and even offers to provide funding from her budget to send the English teacher to the workshop. The Guidance Counsellor phones some administrators at the downtown school board office to get their approval for this type of an expense and, as a result of their conversation, is no longer interested in supporting this endeavour. The Guidance Counsellor now has to find a way to tell the English teacher that she will have to withdraw her support.

Setting: It’s the 32-minute lunch “hour” in the staff room of Father Lacombe High. The Guidance Counsellor spots the English teacher at the sink through the 30 or so teachers milling about having their lunch. She approaches the English teacher and begins to tell her of the new turn of events.

Some Possible Arguments for the Guidance Counsellor:

• Even though I offered you funding before, the administrators downtown will not approve of this type of expenditure.

• I cannot provide you with any of the names of the people involved as that was a private conversation.

• I am able to contact certain administrators in my capacity as a Guidance Counsellor. You do not have the same access to these people as a teacher.

• While the Catholic board acknowledges that gay students are at a high risk of violence, either from themselves or from others, it cannot support a workshop that condones and normalizes homosexuality.

• The Catholic Church does not accept homosexuals.

• While I am aware of the Alberta Teachers’ Association initiative to create safe and caring schools for all students, we as a Catholic school board are not necessarily part of that project. We are developing our own Catholic response to these sensitive issues.

As in the earlier dramatic skits, the two actors/presenters play out an improvised skit for the audience with the oppressed character being at a loss as to how to respond to the statements made by the oppressive character. The reason the scene is played out in this way is so that the audience can have time to imagine some more productive ways for the oppressed character to respond.

The excerpt below depicts what I consider one of the more illuminating dramatic skits that developed after an audience member yelled “Stop!” and came into the improv scene in the role of the oppressed character. In this scene, the oppressor is the Guidance Counsellor (GC) and the oppressed character is the Teacher.

Teacher: But this doesn’t make any sense. Just yesterday you were impressed with this opportunity and thought it would be great to have a teacher from our school participate.

GC: Well, yes, but now we can’t go through with it because the administrators downtown will not approve of this type of expenditure.

Teacher: Did you tell them it is for the Society for Safe and Caring Schools and that you are behind our own mini Safe and Caring Schools project here in this high school and that you support the idea of sending one of our teachers to develop anti-discrimination lesson plans?

GC: Yes, but it’s out of my hands I’m afraid.

Teacher: It’s because the anti-discrimination lesson plans would also deal with homophobia, isn’t it?

GC: Well, they didn’t offer a reason as to why they would not approve of this expenditure. You do know, of course, that the Catholic Church does not condone homosexuality.

Teacher: The Safe and Caring Schools project should be for all students, not just those accepted by the Catholic faith. Are you aware that the Alberta Teachers’ Association protects students from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

GC: Well, yes, that may be so, but we as a Catholic school board do not necessarily adhere to every aspect of the ATA. In fact, we are developing our own Catholic response to sensitive issues such as homosexuality in our schools.

Teacher: I don’t understand how you can have a selective membership in the Alberta Teachers’ Association and why you would want to develop your own workshops about homosexuality when that work has already been done by the ATA.

GC: We have a special responsibility as a Catholic school board to ensure that what we do reflects the doctrines of the faith. It is clear that you are very interested in this matter. Perhaps you would like to join the committee that is developing our unique Catholic response to sensitive issues in our schools?

Analysis

This scene underscores one of the more subtle forms of homophobia in Catholic schools – the faceless institutional control over what teachers may and may not do in the fight to reduce discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It reveals the classic “pass the buck” tactic that various officials in Catholic schools may employ when questioned about why they will not support anti-homophobia work in the schools. It also reveals the contradiction inherent in the way that many Catholic schools may support the safe and caring schools project in theory but not in practice, especially if that means ensuring the safety of homosexual students who are arguably the group most at risk of violence either from themselves or from others in the school. Like the first skit in which a Coordinating Teacher said that Catholic schools do not have to teach everything that is in the provincial curriculum, this skit sheds light on another example of selectivity on the part of Catholic schools when faced with progressive policies that may be at odds with the Catholic faith.

Conclusion

In presenting a description of the process behind the performance of these dramatic skits, it is not my intention to suggest that all Catholic schools are always homophobic. Rather, I offer these dramatic skits as a Foucauldian (1977) counternarrative that unsettles the common understanding that homophobia does not exist, or at the very least, is difficult to see. The dramatic skits are presented in the order of the most overt example of homophobia to the least overt example so that by the time the audience encounter the most subtle skit, their eyes and minds may be better trained to perceive the homophobia that is operating in the skit. I employ Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1974/1979) techniques in the broadest sense, recognizing that the political oppression he was addressing is not the same as homophobia, the form of oppression I am highlighting in this paper. Nevertheless, Boal’s techniques can be effectively applied to all kinds of oppressive situations with a view to providing an avenue of expression for oppressed peoples.

Prentki and Selman (2000) suggest “in the moment of improvisation or performance, there is a sense in which anything can be risked, in which the ‘unsayable’ can be said, the ‘undoable’ done and then, if necessary, undone” (p. 146). Feldhendler (1994) also agrees that there is potential in the improvisation of situations for transformation, for something to happen that can “symbolically change [one’s] relationships both on the stage and in one’s life” (p. 96). By engaging in Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, audiences can explore and evaluate their own and each other’s perceptions and understandings of the world. In such performance, there is the potential for change. When these four dramatic skits were performed before an audience of graduate students, many later said that they did not know such examples of homophobia existed. Those who actively took part in creating the drama saw that, like drama, our social reality is constructed and can be reconstructed. Underlying each performance is the potential for change. Indeed, for Boal (1974/1979), drama was a rehearsal for future action.

References

Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed. (C. McBride & M. McBride, Trans.). London: Pluto Press. (Original work published in 1974).

Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors. (A. Jackson, Trans.). London: Routledge.

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Feldhendler, D. (1994). Augusto Boal and Jacob L. Moreno: Theatre and therapy. In J. Cohen-Cruz & M. Schutzman (Eds.), Playing Boal: Theatre, therapy, activism (pp. 73-92). London: Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1977). Language, counter-memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews. (D. Bouchard & S. Simon, Trans.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (M.B. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum Publishing Corp.

Grace, A. P., & Wells, K. (2005). The Marc Hall prom predicament: Queer individual rights v. institutional church rights in Canadian public education. Canadian Journal of Education 28(3), 237-270.

MacKinnon, Justice R. (2002, May 10). Smitherman v. Powers and the Durham Catholic District School Board (Court File No. 12-CV-227705CM3). Whitby, ON: Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Prentki, T. & Selman, J. (2000). Popular theatre in political culture: Britain and Canada in focus. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.

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© Tomorrow’s Trust 2007