Agusto Boal and Aristotle’s Coercive System of Tragedy

Agusto Boal was a Brazilian activist who brought revolutionary changes to theatre as an artform. In his work Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal extensively discusses about the theatrical form that he developed of the same name. He also explains the politics involved behind various dramatic techniques and criticisms from across the world like Aristotle, Hegel and Brecht. In the first chapter, Boal argues that the Greek tragedies, as defined by Aristotle, is actually a coercive system that enforces state ideologies onto the citizens.

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

-Aristotle

According to Aristotle, Tragedy is an imitation of an action that, through its several characteristics, evokes catharsis or ‘proper purgation of soul’. Every tragedy has a tragic hero who is defined as “a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty”. This error in the hero is referred to as his tragic flaw or hamartia. The spectator establishes an empathic relationship with the protagonist and lives vicariously through him as he enjoys a state of happiness brought upon by the same hamartia. Then suddenly, the hero falls from happiness to misfortune. This is referred to as ‘peripeteia’. The spectator along with the hero suffers this but is unable to disassociate with the character due to ‘anagnorisis’, i.e, recognition of the flaw. Furthermore, the tragedy ends with a ‘catastrophe’ wherein, the hero suffers the consequences of his action through death or a fate worse than death. 

Boal sums up this process in three stages. Stage 1, where the protagonist and the spectator take a path towards happiness which then moves towards misfortune. Stage 2, the character and the spectator realise their own hamartia which Boal refers to as an ‘anti-constitutional flaw’; where the state reinforces certain unsaid social set-ups. Stage 3, where after the horror of the catastrophe, the terrified spectator undergoes catharsis through which they are purified of their hamartia. As explained by Arnold Hauser, the tragedians were paid by the state to produce the plays and thus, they naturally denied any plays that went against the state. Through the tragedies, the spectator is emotionally manipulated into thinking that having this hamartia would lead to a terrible fate, thus maintaining the status-quo in the society. This can also be analysed with reference to Althuser’s Ideological State Apparatus. In this context, the values of the state are propagated through theatre which acts as an institution.

Tragedy effectively coerces people into believing that any desire to go against the state will prove disastrous. This reinforces Boal’s statement that, theatre is the most perfect artistic form of coercion. Though Aristotle claims that poetry, theatre and tragedy are not associated to politics, Boal points out that reality states otherwise. And so, it can be argued that artforms, including theatre or its modern variants such as television and film – are all political.