Oppresed, Theatre of

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Journal of Health Psychology

DOI: 10.1177/13591053070867102008; 13; 166J Health Psychol

WardJohn Sullivan, Sharon Petronella, Edward Brooks, Maria Murillo, Loree Primeau and Jonathan

Transformational Therapy for the Body PoliticTheatre of the Oppressed and Environmental Justice Communities: A

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166

Theatre of theOppressed and

EnvironmentalJustice Communities

A Transformational Therapyfor the Body Politic

JOHN SULLIVAN, SHARON PETRONELLA,

EDWARD BROOKS, MARIA MURILLO, LOREE

PRIMEAU, & JONATHAN WARDUniversity of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA

Abstract

Community Environmental Forum

Theatre at UTMB-NIEHS Center in

Environmental Toxicology uses

Augusto Boals Theatre of the

Oppressed (TO) to promote

involvement of citizens, scientists, and

health professionals in deconstructing

toxic exposures, risk factors, and

cumulative stressors that impact the

well-being of communities. The TO

process encourages collective

empowerment of communities by

disseminating information and

elaborating support networks. TO also

elicits transformation and growth on a

personal level via a dramaturgical

system that restores spontaneity

through image-making and

improvisation. An NIEHS

Environmental Justice Project,

Communities Organized against

Asthma & Lead, illustrates this

interplay of personal and collective

change in Houston, Texas.

Journal of Health PsychologyCopyright 2008 SAGE Publications

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi

and Singapore

www.sagepublications.com

Vol 13(2) 166179

DOI: 10.1177/1359105307086710

C O M P E T I N G I N T E R E S T S : None declared.

A D D R E S S . Correspondence should be directed to:

JOHN SULLIVAN, Sealy Center for Environmental Health & Medicine/NIEHS

Center in Environmental Toxicology, 301 University Blvd, University of

Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 775551110, USA. [email:

[email protected]]

Keywords

Augusto Boal Community-Based Participatory

Research (CBPR) drama therapy

environmental justice (EJ) Project COAL Theatre of the Oppressed

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Politics is the therapy of society;therapy is the politics of the person. (Augusto Boal)

TOXICO-GENOMICS, oxidative stress, metabolic detoxi-

fication pathways: none of these areas of inquiry so

essential to basic environmental health science con-jure up easy associations with theatre, or the work of

Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire. But the National

Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center at

the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston

has turned this notion on its head in an effort to effec-

tively reach communities with toxic exposure issues

on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coast. Because por-

tions of these communities often share a fence line

with point sources of pollutionpetrochemical

installations, power generation facilities, landfills or

hazardous waste sitesvarious degrees of air, soil orwater toxicity are facts of daily life. Health disparities

in coastal EJ communities are starkly drawn and

fence line neighborhoods often lack basic services

and effective advocacy.

The Public Forum & Toxics Assistance division of

UTMBs NIEHS Center uses Boals Theatre of the

Oppressed (TO) as a major outreach to fence line

locales in a unique environmental justice experiment

called Community Environmental Forum Theatre

(CEFT). These Forum projects were designed as

translational interfaces to link current science intoxicology, epidemiology and clinical medicine with

communities in need of this information. As public

health shifts toward a more Community-Based

Participatory Research (CBPR) model mandating

wide spectrum involvement from neighborhood part-

ners, CEFT also connects communities with assess-

ment, implementation, and evaluation phases of what

were formerly just academic studies, owned and

operated by outsider experts.

However, these Forums are also part of a subtle and

deeper transformational process that alters personalperspectives of community advocates and scientists

that fully participate. Ultimately, this embodied

immersion in Theatre of the Oppressed plays its own

variations on Paulo Freires critical pedagogy to

increase critical awareness of the tangled power

dynamic overarching environmental justice. A matrix

of Boals dramatic techniques, Freires democratic

principles of group inquiry, and the community-based

science (CBPR) paradigm inform commitment of

research and advocacy efforts to partnerships that

investigate root causes as well as addressing healthand social outcomes of environmental injustices. The

following analysis offers a broad stroke overview of

how TO connects with Freires critical praxis, outlines

its use in environmental health and justice outreach,

and discusses how the Forum integrates site-specific

local knowledge with technical expertise in toxicol-

ogy and risk assessment. The notion of TO and

Freires pedagogy as intellectual-experiential frame-works promoting both personal and collective trans-

formations frames a pervasive model for these

changes, and suggests how renewal manifests in indi-

viduals and in the world.

What is Theatre of theOppressed?

Augusto Boal describes Theatre of the Oppressed

as a dramaturgical system of Games and specialTechniques that aims at developing, in oppressed cit-

izens, the language of theatre, which is the essential

human language (Boal, 1992/2002, p. 253). The pri-

mary element in this system is the community inten-

sive, a workshop comprised of physical games,

image-making exercises, character creation and

scene-building improvisational structures. Boal

describes the components parts of the TO process as:

knowing the bodyexploring limitations, bal-ance, improvisational possibilities and social

distortions; making the body expressivedehabituation,

learning vocabulary and syntax of dramaticphysicality;

theatre as language (and way of inquiry andknowing)simultaneous dramaturgy, imagetheatre and the Forum;

theatre as discoursethematic spectacles (fluidsculptures, spoken word, multi-voiced poems)(Boal, 1985, p. 126).

The intensive usually culminates in the production

of a public Forum. Forums give groups oppressed bysocial injustice an opportunity to represent these

oppressions and engage community audiences in an

interactive dialogue. To clarifyand theatricalize

what he means by oppression, or who he refers to as

the oppressed, Boal offers, the oppressed have lost

the right to express their wills and needs, and are

reduced to the condition of obedient listeners to the

monologue [of power] (Boal, 1985, p. 143).

While the primary focus of TO is very strictly col-

lective; participation in the TO intensive workshop

process provokes significant personal transformationparticularly through sensory re-tuning and trust exer-

cises, and the deep tissue image work that explores

SULLIVAN ET AL.: THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED

167



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social power dynamics and the root causes of oppres-

sions (Boal, 1992/2002, p. 251). Well-made Forum

scenes resonate strongly with the daily life of com-

munity audiences and this energy compels

the transformation of passive spectators into engaged

spect-actors. These vital interactions encourage awide spectrum of social outcomes: community

empowerment and organizing, teaching concepts,

building issue awareness and agendas, strategizing

and rehearsing action, connecting citizens with move-

ments, and widening coalitions. The Community

Environmental Forum Theatre practiced by Public

Forum & Toxics Assistance is structured primarily

around techniques associated with sensory retuning,

Image and Forum Theatre, which Boal describes as

vital trunkelements in the Tree of the Theatre of the

Oppressed.

Dehabituating the habitual

Boals process begins with knowing the body and

making the body expressive. Structured movement

exercises promote change in habitual body

patternsmodeling and tuning the actors instrument

to reshape how the body moves through space and

reconfigure how the senses interface with the world.

Boal describes this immersion in the vocabulary and

syntax of physicality as a radical remodeling in which

we must start with de-mechanization, the re-tuning

(or de-tuning) of the actor (2000, p. 32). Entre into

Boals dramaturgy involves first reconfiguring the

basics: patterns of breathing and distributing muscular

tension throughout the body, balance, walking, vocal-

izing, and improvisational use of space, objects, and

mental imagery to influence and modulate physical

actions. This divergence of behavior from pragmatic

norms frees the actors musculature, and breaks inter-

nalized controls on expression that inhibit spontaneity.

Because both image-making and Forum acting

are improvisational skills, spontaneity is the sine qua

non for effective participation. This focus echoes the

centrality of true spontaneity in the dramatic

methodologies of Jacob Moreno (Sternberg &

Garcia, 1989, pp. 107112). TO intensives follow a

pattern of training similar to Morenoswarming to

the task of change with muscular, sensory, memory,

imagination and emotional memory exercisesto

break down body/mind rigidity, and unlock improvi-

sational resources (Boal, 1992/2002, pp. 3137).Boals belief in the primacy of the body as an

instrument for apprehending the world and, of

course, a liberating vehicle for action on the world,

mirrors Freires statement, It is my entire body that

socially knows (Freire, 1998, p. 92). In addition,

Boals systemthoroughly rooted in Stanislavski

also asserts the paramount importance of emotion;

though the Forum may be less concerned with pro-duction values than mainstream theatre, Forum

actors must still tap their store of emotional memo-

ries to express the consequences of oppression in a

way that activates community audiences to intervene

in their shared drama with novel actions. Buried feel-

ings, particularly around the negative effects of living

in chronically polluted communities, will invariably

surface during Forum intensives. The Forum process

aims to rationalize remembered emotional experi-

ences, seeking both how and why a person is moved,

what is the nature of this emotion, what its causesare with special emphasis on social causes (Boal,

1992/2002, p. 36).

These feelings serve as raw materials for analytic

image work that deconstructs experience and allows

actors the creative freedom to reconfigure images of

power dynamics that perpetuate oppressions. The

process is further distanced from the personal with

infusions of toxicology and risk communication

technique during the course of the intensive. This

tox & risk meta-structure grounds the body-

work, sensory-emotive exercises, image-making, andscene-work in practical, collective goals: raising the

communitys informational baseline and expanding

capacity for effective advocacy and action. The sci-

entific content also lends environmental health sci-

ence credibility to the Forum process and creates

an interface that blends subjective attitudes, and

community-life ways into the mix of scientific tools,

techniques and project relationships commonly

described as Community-Based Participatory

Research, or CBPR (Sullivan & Lloyd, 2006, p. 629).

Image Theatre: sharing adialogue and crafting acommon lens

Boal describes Image Theatre as a series of

Techniques that allow people to communicate

through Images and Spaces, and not through words

alone (Theatre of the Oppressed/Techniques: Image

Theatre, www.theatreoftheoppressed.org). Image

Theatre exercises are loosely structured as conver-sations coded in a visual and kinesthetic language

that allows participants to physically experience

JOURNAL OF HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY 13(2)

168



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how it feels to embody both their own and each

others oppressions, interactions, dreams, and tri-

umphs. This silent dialogue of gestural signs consti-

tutes the primary representational and analytic tool

in the arsenal of the Theatre of the Oppressed, and

its importance parallels the primacy of conversa-tion, what bell hooks calls the central location of

pedagogy in democratic or libratory education

(hooks, 2003, p. 44).

The dialogic core of Forum imagery parallels con-

cepts advanced in many systems of popular, or demo-

cratic pedagogyfrom bell hooks to Henry Giroux to

Thomas Dewey. The most important match, however,

is always with fellow Brazilian, Paulo Freire, whose

Pedagogy of the Oppressed translates smoothly into

the embodied processes of community actors as they

build images of the world as it is, and then modifythem to approximate a world they would choose to

inhabit. In Freires framework, engaged learners are

transformed through immersion in active praxis, grow-

ing into critical awareness, enhanced presence, a sense

of personal and group agency, and hope.

Boals praxis is similar, but more spontaneous and,

being of the theatre, entirely embodied. Community

actors progress through a series of precursor exercises:

learning to use their own body, that of a partner, and

finally small groups to represent emotions, states-of-

being, abstract concepts, and relational dynamics assculptures. Exercises such as auto-sculpture (self), the

image gallery (partners), the fishbowl (multiple points-

of-view), and small group images (multiple images of

oppression, happiness, and so on) develop cumulative

image-making skills as actors represent progressively

more detailed pictures of reality. Boal has developed a

massive repertoire of variations on the theme of

images, transforming Freires analytic process into a

dialogic ballet. Each variation approximates a special

lens that diffracts reality from different angles of ana-

lytic regard. Image structures may be categorized byfunction as:

viewing reality from multiple points-of-view; representing group dynamics/social oppres-

sions; making/modifying proposals for change; animating freeze-frames to explore conse-

quences and implications of stop action images; building story-boards for Forum-lengths scenes.

Images constructed by Community Environmental

Forum Theatre actors focus almost exclusively onthemes of risk, justice and basic safety (see Fig. 1).

Actors sculpt representational or symbolic figures

carrying the emotional burden of life on the fence-line:

sorrow over disease in the family, fear of explosions or

upsets at the local industrial plant, rage at local gov-

ernment, industry, and pollution regulators, resigna-

tion, apathy, fatalism or cynicism in the face of

apparent unassailable reality, or marginalization

from the mainstream of power and civic life. Images of

the local/regional power dynamic overlaying life in

fence-line communities often depict coping with the

effects of cumulative environmental and social stres-

sors, lack of access to basic services, effects of politi-

cal patronage, and lax regulation of polluting point

sources. A brief sampling of dominant themes from

previous CEFT sessions reveals how local concerns

resonate through the content of images and the Forum:

Participants in the Barrio Segundo/Houston, TXForum created images and a primary scene thatportrayed community division over the siting ofa new public school (Cesar Chavez High

School) less than 2000 yards from the fence-line of an industrial point source of 1, 3 butadi-ene, a known carcinogen (2002).

Members of Mothers for Clean Air5th WardChapter/Houston, TX depicted the developmentaldamage done to neighborhood children by heavymetal emissions (lead, cadmium, thallium, nickel)from a former local steel casting plant declared aNational Priority Superfund site (2003).

Members of Citizens for EnvironmentalJustice/Corpus Christi, TX constructed an elab-orate image of various community reactions to

a cluster of congenital birth defects in aLatino neighborhood contiguous with localrefineries (2004).


169

Figure 1. Fence-line family circles the wagons for pro-

tection after one of the children is diagnosed with Acute

Lymphocytic Leukemia (community In-Power &

Development Association/Port Arthur, TX, 2004).



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The Community In-Power & DevelopmentAssociation Forum in Port Arthur, TX produceda series of worst environmental fear imagesthat featured the physical and psychologicaleffects of explosions, fires, and accidents at thenearby refining and chemical production plants(2004).

Participants in a post-Katrina/Rita environmen-tal health hazards projectHurricane readi-

ness: A way of life on the Bayous; Houma,LAcreated a series of community storm haz-ard images, some of which portrayed the dam-aging effects of industrial channels cut throughcoastal marshland for easy access among petro-chemical production sites (2006).

An east Houston group convened byMadrespor aire limpio created images depicting therole of eminent domain and gentrification indislocating low-income Latino families along aproposed light-rail corridor, as well as morepredictable sculptures of lax air monitoring and

regulatory responses (2007).

By composing multi-character freeze frame

tableaus to represent social conflicts, power imbal-

ances, and stages in the transformation of social

dynamics, community actors graphically recreate per-

sonal or collective experiences as three-dimensional

snapshots; in populating these representations with

fellow actorscarefully adjusting gestures, distribut-

ing body tensions, and modeling facial expressions

they also share the skin of these events: the sense of

physicality and the emotions these human situationprovoke (see Fig. 2). This educational process builds

a network of shared support and solidarity within the

group. Boals image process elicits these pictures of

the world we see and the world we feel to use as raw

materials for analyses of social subtexts, identifying

root causes of oppressions. Manipulating these

images with transformative image exercisesaReal

to Ideal alteration, or 3 Fast Wishes (cycles changethrough rapid, successive approximations)serves to

objectify social situations and promotes re-envisioning

their unassailable reality as contingent situation.

This corresponds to a drama therapy paradigm pre-

scribed by Renee Emunah as a primary psychothera-

peutic treatment goal: the development of an

observing self ... a function of collective witness and

self reflection which creates images and scenes of all

that could be, fostering a sense of hopefulness

(Emunah, 1994, pp. 3133).

Forum Theatre: a rehearsal forthe rest of your life

The Forum could be called the signature element in

Boals overarching Theatre of the Oppressed dra-

maturgy. Community arts theorist,Arlene Goldbard,

observes that Forum Theatre has had the widest

influence on community cultural development work

[throughout the world] (2006, p. 119) and it is cer-

tainly true that the Forumwith some adaptations

to accommodate traditional valuesflourishes in a

variety of cultural contexts.

Forums are produced by participants in TO inten-

sives, conducted by the workshop facilitator: Boal

calls this role the joker, and the Forum conductors

process, jokering. Forum scenes, crafted by com-

munity actors, are shared with a community audi-

ence, which naturally resonates with the local issues

depicted in the scenes. The Forum presents a syn-

thesis of many hours of collective research into the

nuanced inter-personal dynamics of environmental

justice or other social issues. Forum scenes and

their precursor images of the world as it is are called

anti-models because they produce no satisfying clo-

sure and the oppressions and antagonists that dog

the protagonist persist and continue to control the

flow of events (Boal, 1992/2002, pp. 241244).

In Freirean terms, anti-models re-present reality

as a problem to solve rather than an eternal cross to

bear (Freire, 1971/2000, pp. 109114). The act of

physically re-visioning models of reality that have

proved dysfunctional or counterproductiveforexample, reconfiguring social atoms or family sculp-

tures, physically rehearsing necessary changes in


170

Figure 2. Fire in the HoleCIDA members create image

of their worst environmental fear: an explosion and fire at

the nearby chemical plant (Community In-Power &

Development Association/Port Arthur, TX 2004).



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habitual behaviors, or encouraging an actor to say

exactly what s(h)e believes to an antagonist through a

magic screen or as an aside (aka Sociodrama)also

has obvious congruence with various systems of

drama therapy (Sternberg & Garcia, 1989, p. 72).

Based on the idea that anti-models must convey thenature of social conflicts clearly, Boal offers a few

general parameters for designing effective Forum

scenes:

Each Forum must present a clear question. A scenesdramatic architecture must focus on the conflict ofwills which express different social forces. All char-acters must be integral to this structure which mustbe centralized in a core conflict: the concretion of thecentral idea of the play. (1998, p. 62)

The notion that clearly drawn issues, strong con-

flicts, obvious power imbalances in social relation-

ships, and a glaring lack of closure potentiates

audience interaction is a cardinal principle in build-

ing effective Forum scenes. Since environmental

justice issues naturally lend themselves to this more

or less dialectical treatment, Boals classic Forum is

well suited to themes commonly addressed in

Community Environmental Forum Theatre.

The structure of the Forum incorporates the audi-

ence as co-participantsor spect-actors in Boals

lexiconsetting up situations in which actors are

not divided from spectators [who may] cross the

invisible fourth wall of the theater and enter the

action, to replace the frustrated, confused or other-

wise stymied protagonist (Goldbard, 2006, p. 119).

Boal describes this process as collective rehearsal

for changing reality(1998, p. 57). TO and the more

general field of applied theatre share a spectrum of

common characteristics, including:

an affinity for incompleteness (anti-modelslack of closure);

demonstration of possible narratives (multiplestory threads, multiple points of view);

task-oriented focus (critical praxis is not apassive process);

emphasis on posing dilemmas (reality is aproblem to be solved);

interrogation of possible futures (spect-actorspropose multiple futures);

provides an aesthetic medium that gives voiceto communities (empowerment/demystification)(Taylor, 2003, p. 27).

The perfect Forum would leave actors, spect-actors, and audience energized, actively vigilant, and

dissatisfied with the world they have seen portrayed

on stage. Freire calls this a state of patient impa-

tience, while Boal is less ambiguous. There is no

place for passivity at a Forum; Theatre of the

Oppressed primes spectators to apply their powers

of critical awareness to deconstruct what they see

and prepare for action. In contrast with the con-

ventional Aristotelian catharsiswhich Boal dubs

adaptive, disempowering and tranquillizingcatharsis in Theatre of the Oppressed is active and

dynamizing. He describes this process as a cathar-

sis of detrimental blocksawakening the desire to act

(Boal, 1995, pp. 7273).

Boals anti-homeostatic mode of catharsis closely

parallels Jacob Morenos catharsis of integration,

which liberates spontaneity, allowing the actor in a

psychodramaor less directly, participants in a

sociodramaaccess to formerly blocked powers of

personal creativity. However there is a significant

core difference: the locus of Morenos catharsis ismore personal and specific. Boals catharsis

envelops actors, spect-actors, and the entire audi-

ence in a web of issues and proposed actions

(Feldhendler, 1994, p. 99) (see Fig. 3).

The Dance of Feeling, Science &Storylinking TO & EJ with thefacts of environmental health

In broad terms, the NIEHS-UTMB project inCommunity Environmental Forum Theatre uses

Boals image-making and improvisational action


171

Figure 3. Forum scene intervention: a young audience

member enters the Forum scene to tell Dad shes wor-

ried about the effects of lead poisoning on his daughter,

one of her classmates, and also a good friend. (El Teatro

Lucha por la Salud del Barrio/de Madres a Madres/Houston, TX, 2004).



8/15

techniques with environmental justice communities

as a tool kit for characterizing and representing

linkages among toxic exposures and health impacts.

The Public Forum & Toxics Assistance TO practi-

tioner provides basic toxicological information

within the structure of Theatre of the Oppressed tocollaborate with community environmentalists in

building locally authentic anti-models of toxic chal-

lenges and cumulative risk effects in their neighbor-

hoods. While initial image models help define what

exists and how much it hurts in specific terms, mod-

ifying these images of cumulative community bur-

den toward better approximations of health and

community empowerment moves dialogue and

action in the direction of hope and positive change.

These urgent images or scenes from lives, inter-

rupted by damageall seen through local eyesunmediated by the careful intentions and precise

methodologies of sciencetake shape with swift

spontaneity. They legitimate the process and carry

representational authority beyond the scope of pro-

fessional experts to define, measure, and predict

(Wiley & Feiner, 2001, p. 121).

Forum actors from Mothers for Clean Air/5th

Ward Chapter (Houston, TX) created a power

dynamic image they named Us Watching Them

Watching Us. This image incorporated a self-

aggrandizing local politicianwhose face wasturned away from the neighborhoodand neigh-

bors in various stances of denial, engagement,

paralysis, despair, or rage. In the center of these

frozen action figures, a mother pointed vehemently

at the politician with a panic face while her child, a

victim of lead poisoning from a former industrial

site, lay listless at her feet. And above them all, ele-

vated to a rarified level by education, technology,

and funding, stood three detached scientists

watching, measuring, recording their data. A neigh-

bor pointed upwards at the scientists, urging then tocome on down and see whats happening, for real.

As the group modified their image, the politician

was named, and environmental scientists warned

that the neighborhood had been studied to death and

now they wanted real action. A further modifica-

tionusing 3 Fast Wishespushed the politician

permanently outside the neighborhood, and brought

the scientists off their pedestals to meet Mom and

her stricken child, reflecting the need for scientists

to stand square in the middle of the community

dynamic rather than outside, or above it, a primedirective of community-based science (Fischer,

2000, p. 168) (see Fig. 4).

While the didactic content of CEFT concentrates

on the physical health of the community,

focused image-making provides access to sub-

merged feelingswhat we call the affective subtext

of environmental justicethat are normally sup-

pressed in the interests of just getting by. Expressing

the heart of these matters moves dialogue beyond

the normal confines of pollution permitting, regula-

tory procedures, excess disease rates and risk fac-

tors, and into the realm where knowledge and

solidarity transform despair and frustration into con-

crete action to influence policy. But this transforma-

tion of attitudes and aspirations would not find much

traction in the real world of coalitions, advocacy, and

tough negotiation without solid grounding in facts.

Community Environmental Forum Theatre also uses

the dramatic tools of Boals dramaturgy to help pro-

ject partners build science literacy capacities

(Sullivan & Lloyd, 2006, pp. 634635). This tox,

risk, & stress curriculum incorporates basic (quali-

tative) toxicology, community ethnography, and

social epidemiology covering concepts such as:

Tox: Preformatted participatory image structuresand sociometry exercises illustrate toxicologyconcepts germane to community needs for infor-mation. The toxcomponent encompasses exposurepathways, dose response parametersmagnitude,duration, frequency, timingsusceptibilityfactors, vulnerable populations,

bioaccumulation, bio-magnification, fate,transport and bioavailability, biomarkersof exposure and susceptibility,


172

Figure 4. Something here is very wrong. Image shows

extent of a local congenital heart disease cluster and vari-

ous community reactionswhile an environmental health

scientist quietly observes from outside the social dynamic

(Citizens for Environmental Justice/Corpus Christi, TX,

2003).



9/15

persistent-organic-pollutants (POPs), and chemicalbody burdens (Sexton, Needham, & Pirkle, 2003,pp. 3845).

Risk: This component stems from an image-based ethnography process in which partici-pants build site-specific snapshots of exposurepathways, risk perceptions, risk & action priori-ties, personal experience with EJ and environ-mental health issues, community powerdynamics, and create image maps of commu-nity assets, and stressors. Sociometry exercisesallow participants to determine intra-groupsafety and toxic abatement priorities, as well assampling the spectrum of group experienceregarding the personal effects of toxic expo-sures (ATSDR, 2005, pp. 2(1)2(16)).

Stress: Facilitator and participants create shortscenes and improvisational exercises exploringthe human effects of cumulative communitystress burdens from chronic toxic exposures,environmentally induced health effects, lack ofaccess to needed health care, and other social-economic indicators of health, opportunity, andjustice disparities. The concept of multiplestressor effects, cumulative risk, and the influ-ence of these factors on a communitys abilityto recover from chronic toxic assaults closelyguides planning scenes for the public Forum(NEJAC, 2004, pp. 540).

Ideally tox, risk, & stress instruction folds neatlyinto the sharing and validation of community stories.

Actors expand their knowledge base and refresh their

commitment to environmental health, while neighbors

find new reasons to reconnect and organizations refine

their advocacy and expand capacity to make a credible

case and lead with confidence. These transformations

stem from the encounter between objective analysis

and reflexive subjectivity as community actors toggle

through the process of evaluating and expressing the

environmental framework that conditions and limits

their lives. This process blends Boals expressive phys-icality and Paulo Freires critical praxis with

Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), a

demystified practice of investigation and collaborative

intervention in which experts work cooperatively

with the community to understand and resolve com-

munity problems, empower community members and

democratize research (Fischer, 2000, p. 174).

CBPR provides a platform for channeling and

sustaining the bias toward effective action that

flows naturally from the juices of the Forum.

Without the influence of embodied pedagogy, theseshifts of self and community would be more strictly

cerebral, and the urge to act, less compelling. But

the structure of CBPR is equally essential; knowl-

edge and passion need leverage to move the pre-

vailing power dynamic, at best impassive, at its

worst, actively antagonistic, toward inclusion and

greater justice.

CBPR and CEFTallies in aprocess of transforming horizonsof the possible

Defined as a collaborative approach to research that

equitably involves all partners in the research process

and recognizes the unique strengths that each brings

(Katz, 2004), Community-Based Participatory

Research widens the angle of regard for public health

activities, acknowledging that community networksand leaders, local knowledge of adverse social and

economic consequences of environmental degrada-

tion, and community beliefs and attitudes are all vital

factors that directly impact the efficacy of research

and community outreach (Sullivan & Lloyd, 2006,

pp. 629630). CBPR carries with it a necessary man-

date to restructure the undemocratic expertclient

relationship because hypotheses, analysis and inter-

pretation directly affects the social power dynamic

(Fischer, 2000, p. 172). This inter-cultural conversa-

tion among researchers, community advocates, andcitizens is also rich as a paradigm for new informa-

tion-laden relationships and action.

Frank Fischer acknowledges this value-added

aspect of CBPR, stating: participatory forms of

inquiry have the potential to provide new knowl-

edgein particular, local knowledgethat is inac-

cessible to more abstract empirical methods set in

play by cultural outsiders (2000, p. 147). Dr Marvin

Legator, a pioneer in genetic toxicology and avid pro-

moter of popular epidemiology, rejected the myth of

scientific exclusivitya belief that the methods ofscience and fruits of research belong exclusively to

scientistsin favor of a methodological pluralism

that directly incorporates informally trained citizens

and public health advocates into population-based

studies (Legator & Strawn, 1993, p. 3).

CBPR methodology challenges the centrality of sci-

entific experts, and openly acknowledges the political

dimensions of knowledge production, and the role of

knowledgereinforced by educational disparities and

institutional privilegeas an instrument of power

and control. A community science practitioner helpsthe community frame and answer its own questions

on its own terms (Fischer, 2000, p. 149) and this


173



10/15

relationship closely parallels Freires nonhierarchical

alliance of learner and teacher, or Boals conjunction

of facilitator and actors engaged in TOs program of

embodied inquiry. An NIEHS-funded environmental

justice project linking a community-based social ser-

vice provider, city advocacy groups, universityresearchers, and neighborhood health care centers in

Houston, TX provides an example of how this

Freirean process plays out in the real world.

Project COAL & El Teatro Luchapor la Salud del Barrioa show,tell, and (above all) listeningoutreach to Latinoneighborhoods on Houstons

near north side

The NIEHS Environmental Justice Partnerships

for Communication Program focuses on develop-

ing and testing methods for linking members of

an environmentally impacted community with

research and health care providers. Under this

rubric, Project COALCommunities Organized

against Asthma & Lead/Comunidades organizadas

contra la asma y el plomowas officially launched

in fall 2003 to develop a working environmental

health partnership on Houstons primarily Latinonear north side. Project partners, de Madres a

Madres/DMAM (social service provider), Casa de

Amigos (Harris County direct health care provider)

and University of Texas Medical Branch-NIEHS

Center in Environmental Toxicology framed a

multi-faceted plan to:

train and equip de Madres a Madres staff toconduct residential surveys, sample leadresidues, asthma triggers, and identify exposurepathways;

educate parents on minimizing environmentalhealth hazards;

develop population-based data on incidence andgeographic location of asthma/lead exposurecases;

establish interactive communication channelsfor neighborhoods within the de Madres aMadres catchment area (Ward, 2006).

The project partners identified Forum Theatre as a

suitable vehicle for interactive community dialogue

and El Teatro Lucha por la Salud del Barrio hit

the boards in winter 2004. Boals congruence withthe goals and methods of CBPRparticularly as a

culturally appropriate transitive communications

model linking the partners with local neighbor-

hoodsmade the Forum an easy fit for performers

and their audience (Primeau & Sullivan, 2005, p. 2).

DMAM recruited troupe members directly from the

neighborhood. The size of this multi-generational

teatro ranged between 1014, ages spanned 1264years, with an average gender mix of 60 percent

female to 40 percent male. Most members spoke flu-

ent Spanish; some were recent immigrants while

most were second to third generation Tejana/Tejano.

Eighty percent of the actors derive from Mexico; the

remainder emigrated from Central America. None of

these recruits, including the coordinator-facilitator,

also a DMAM staff member, were actors or had ever

received any prior theatre training. One member of

the troupe was a working visual artist.

Teatro Lucha actors spent 10 weeks immersed intraining: re-tuning their physicality, learning the

rudiments of image-making, improvisation, and the

mechanics of the Forum. In addition, the troupe

completed an informal course in identifying expo-

sure pathways, developmental effects of lead toxic-

ity, asthma pathogenesis, and the respiratory effects

of irritants and specific triggers of respiratory dis-

tress. The directors of Houstons Childhood Lead

Poisoning Prevention Program and the Pediatric

Asthma Center at UTMB/Galveston chose course

materials and presented the sessions. This body ofenvironmental health facts became integrated as

talking points into the content and packaging of

various Forum scenes (Sullivan, 2005).

During training, actors employed images and

improvisation to confront local factors that contribute

to the risks of living in their neighborhoods: aging,

decrepit housing stock bearing residues of lead paint,

absentee or unengaged landlords, high frequency of

children with elevated blood lead levels, wide-spread

respiratory distress, pervasive mold, high levels of

ozone, proximity to traffic and industry, high per-centages of adults and teenagers exposed to work-

place hazards, crime, domestic violence, school

failure: all the physical and social indicators of health

and safety disparities that contribute to environmen-

tal injustices. While adult actorsespecially DMAM

staff and volunteerswere familiar with lead haz-

ards, some of the younger troupe members were

shocked to discover that children relatively close to

their own chronological age were at risk in their own

homes. Exercises such as multiple images of oppres-

sion and an informal Rashomon clarified the scopeand age-related spread of these feelings, and devel-

oped a sense of variance in risk perceptions within


174



11/15

the group, whileReal to Ideal image transformations

allowed actors to create their own successive approx-

imations of a safer, healthier neighborhood (Sullivan,

2005) (see Fig. 5).

De Madres a Madres contacted local elementary

schools to arrange performances at early morning

cafecitos meetingsmonthly gatherings sponsored

by Houston Independent School District and geared

toward an audience of mothers with young children.

This audience was a target demographic because of

the prevalence of childhood asthma and the diredevelopmental effects of lead poisoning. Teatro

Lucha deployed in three sequential phases:

The first show assessed the communitys lead,asthma, and healthy homes knowledge base.Forum scenes offered situations that allowedcommunity residents to demonstrate how theywould approach their neighbors with advice onlimiting exposure to lead or asthma triggers.Information from this interface enabled thepartners to create a respectful, culturally appro-priate intervention model for the next phase ofthe project.

This second iteration focused on developingrisk communication skills to enhance informal,preexisting neighborhood networks. The Forumdrew spect-actors into this effort to collectivelydiscover a convincing rhetorical structure forpresenting health and risk information. Spect-actors used a variety of strategies to pointantagonists toward new personal behaviors andto call them into active engagement with envi-ronmental health issues on both local and city-wide levels.

Phase three devoted less time to actual perfor-mance and concentrated on delivering a combi-nation workshop and opinion survey to four

cafecitos school sites in the neighborhood.Cafecitos mothers, their children, and schoolstaff participated in a brief embodied sociome-try session to establish a sense of the groupsinterest in health issues and to clarify neighbor-hood development priorities.

The project culminates in a final interventionthat melds theatre, tele-novella style filmsequences featuring risk communication sce-narios, and clips from past Forums, with avideotaped and audio documentary treatmentof the near north side focused on Latinohistory and cultural assets, and the neighbor-hoods role in Houstons current growth anddevelopment.

Preliminary data from Project COALs healthy

homes survey confirms what staff at de Madres a

Madres have always suspected: close to 25 percent

of neighborhood housing stock presents a clear risk

to children and adults for potentially dangerous

exposure to lead dust or peeling paint. Add to that

a 30.3 percent rate of respiratory symptoms predic-

tive of asthma among children and the scope of this

environmental health challenge draws into sharper

focus (Ward, 2006). But what about the Forum

experiment? The results of Teatro Luchas labor-

intensive outreach dont translate so readily into

quantities, beyond raw numbers of audience, scores

on health and safety post-performance checklists,

and audience members who registered post-

performance for a healthy home survey. Another

form of evaluation seemed necessary to document

the deep impact of Boals process on the partner

institutions and, most especially, on the community

actors who brought the environmental health mes-

sage directly to the community. Project COAL

turned to grounded theory analysis to qualitatively

examine the transformative effects on Forum actors

of their sustained immersion in this drama-basedpublic health outreach process.

NIEHS Center investigators designed an inter-

view protocol to assess personally transformative

aspects of the TO process within the context of a

partnership for communication. Each actor was

interviewed and asked to evaluate how their partic-

ipation in Teatro Lucha inspired personal changes in

feelings, behaviour, and cognition. These possible

transformations, summarized as broad categories,

comprise:

leadership in the community; knowledge acquisition and skills and develop-

ment as health educator;


175

Figure 5. El Teatro Lucha por la Salud del Barrio sets up

a moving fluid image during a community performance

at Holy Name parish in near north Houston (Project

COAL/de Madres a Madres, Houston, TX, 2005).



12/15

personal efficacy as Community Forum actorand process facilitator;

perceived efficacy of the Forum as an outreachmodality (Primeau & Sullivan, 2005).

Though results are still preliminary, the coding

process identified three emergent thematic cate-

gories in the interviews: TO as Process, Personal

Transformations, and Community Transformations.

Close examination of TO as Process outcomes

yields a positive congruence of actor role with

educator role, a sense that empowerment of oth-

ers occurred through the process and general

enjoyment of participation in the training and per-

formance process. Personal Transformations

include enhanced feelings of self-confidence, self-

esteem, and self-efficacy, increased knowledge,

and improved ability to express concepts and feel-

ings, both verbally and nonverbally. Community

Transformations proved more difficult for the

actors to assess because their primary connection

with the project was delivery rather than evalua-

tion. Their training as actors, and role in the project

as actor-educators provided them no objective plat-

form from which to observe change in community

behaviors. While variations in spect-actor Forum

interventions always occurred from performance to

performance, and audiences seemed more health

and safety savvy as successive phases of Project

COAL unfolded, there was no firm consensus on

project efficacy or transformative community

effects (Primeau & Sullivan, 2005).

In regard to general efficacy, one actor com-

mented: you could potentially have had a negative

health effect if they didnt come [to the performance]

or heard this information. And thats enough.

Attempting to assess the depth of Forum project

effects on the community, another actor observed:

I think awareness is up. I think some people willchange their behavior as a result. And I think thateven the participants think differently about them-selves and, for that reason, will probably spin offinto other areas, you know, be advocates for differ-ent things they believe in. (Primeau & Sullivan,2005)

While acknowledging the subjective bias in herappraisal, this actor captured the essence ofBoals goal for Theatre of the Oppressed and theessential purpose of Freires critical praxis: to

disrupt the habitual, to question the formerlyunassailable answers, to activate and sustain theurgency.

Safety, structure, andsustainability in thetransformational TO process

Having witnessed a host of transformational

moments in the course of Theatre of the Oppressedintensives, its difficult to disclaim that certain

aspects of TO are undeniably therapeutic. While Boal

adamantly asserts that Theatre of the Oppressed is

theatre of the first person plural, and therapeutic

effects of the Forum are alleged to be inclusive and

collective rather than personal, individuals do experi-

ence real joy in physical expression of feelings and

thoughts that were previously suppressed, deep

anger, sometimes rage, at chronic injustice, signifi-

cant turning points in attitudes and beliefs, and

deeply vulnerable instances of self-revelation, doubt,and fear for themselves and their polluted communi-

ties (Boal, 1995, p. 40). Spect-actor interventions

directly mirror central aspects of the Drama Therapy

Role Methodparticularly social modeling and role

system shifting in which clients play out a revised

version of a dysfunctional role in order to influence

others within their social sphere (Landy, 1993,

pp. 5255). Mady Schutzman emphasizes how

tightly TOs introspective and projective techniques

may intertwine in practice, observing that: Boals

techniques have always interfaced with therapeutic[methods and outcomes]he makes no firm distinc-

tion between his techniques appropriate for therapy

and those for political action: he perceives his spect-

actor scheme as relevant to all social transforma-

tions (Schutzman, 1994, p. 137).

But Boal sees no contradiction in his method;

while acknowledging the congruence of his intro-

spective techniques with certain psychotherapeutic

practices, he still contends:

We are theatre artists, not therapists. When a persontells us their particular story,using theatre as a mediumof expression, it is the group that becomes the protag-onist of the session, and not the individual who told (ordonated) the story. (Boal, 1992/2002, p. 206)

This telling process shifts fluidly between the collec-

tive and the personal and Theatre of the Oppressed,

like drama therapy, needs a safe container or holding

arrangement for full effect. The profound work of

feeling, seeing, and modeling a better world out of

the limitations we bring to TO demands secure

perimeters of authenticity and trust (Chrislip, 2002,pp. 4546). Boal recognizes this admixture of danger

and opportunity in his method and warns emotional


176



13/15

exercises can be very dangerous unless we after-

wards rationalize emotion with the aim of under-

standing the experience (1992/2000, p. 32).

Short versions of Boals introspective techniques

like Cops-in-the-Head or Rashomon offer views

inside the uncertainties, stereotypes, and competing

action agendas that garble dialogue around environ-

mental justice issues (Boal, 1995, pp. 111114).These deep structures are especially useful when

community actors play seriouslyat being their com-

munitys perceived oppressor, or portray privileged

outsiders who have the latitude to choose being a

community ally, or not. Gestaltroutines like hot seat-

ing and role reversal allow flexibility in probingand

assemblingunfamiliar perspectives or actually

wearing the oppressors inimical point of view.

Hybrid techniques like Talking to Power/Choosing

Effective Allies improvise on Morenos concept of

social atoms, while adding Sociodramatic techniqueslike ally doubling, the hot seatand the magic screen

to develop characterizations and adjust for imbalances

in social power dynamics (Dayton, 1994, pp. 4653).

Special focus image structures such as Joharis

Window allow actors to probe the submerged struc-

ture of their communities, shedding light on deeply

buried issues, complex power dynamics, hidden

assets, and historical resources (McCarthy & Galvao,

2002, pp. 3739) (see Fig. 6).

Playing the oppressor or a ham-handed potential

ally carries the possibility of real pain: this meansemploying the tactics and privilege of the oppressor

with realism, maintaining the characters modus

operandi scrupulously during spect-actor interven-

tions until one of these novel actions penetrates the

oppressors social armor, or rhetoric of rationaliza-

tions (or both), and compels genuine change.

Canadian TO practitioner, Warren Linds explains

how he handles the delicate act of maintaining asafe container while the oppressed play their

oppressors in his work with First Nations youth:

For the sake of safety we emphasize to the peopleplaying the oppressor that they are not playingthemselves (although there are elements within usthat we must draw on to play these characters). Weemphasize that the success of the process dependson the oppressors being real. If the oppressor isntreal then the investigation of ways to break theoppression isnt real. (Linds, 1998)

Linds also asserts that playing the oppressor role

can get at an understanding of white privilege. Quite

often, white academic facilitators must sit literally in

the hot seat, acknowledging that race, age, gender,

and economic status make one fully complicit with

oppressor privilege. This is absolutely necessary

because racism and class bias are the dirty core of

environmental injustices. We must play the role of

guide through a body of science concepts and dra-

matic techniques, as co-learners, and possibly effec-

tive allies, always accepting that we have no directexperience of the social and environmental injustices

that daily eat away at fence-line communities.

Forum projects require a strong connection with

the future to sustain and nurture that characteristic

bias toward action the process activates. Actors and

communities leave a good Forum resolved to do

something positive about their situation, and with a

hopeful feeling that real change is actually in their

stars. Describing how the Forum changes partici-

pants by modeling the positive as possible, Boal

asserts: The act of transforming also transformsshe or he who acts. Theatre of the Oppressed uses

the theater as a rehearsal for transformation of real-

ity(Boal, 3 June 2005). But transformation without

real world action will not persist, indeed, may

morph into deep, paralyzing cynicism. The next

stepa cardinal dictum of CBPR, labor and social

justice organizing, alikeis creating and nurturing

a structure for sustainable, focused action.

Frank Fischer observes, collective citizen partic-

ipation is not something that can simply happen.

It has to be organized, facilitated and even nurtured(2000, p. 143). Otherwise, citizens will find little value

in Forums, coalitions, or any substantive engagement


177

Figure 6. No skin off my nose.A Joharis Window exer-

cise revealed lack of awareness and denial as impediments

to effective community action on the environment; these

finding were presented in a scene about commitment vs

apathy (Mothers for Clean Air/5th Ward Chapter, Houston,

TX, 2003).



14/15

with community issues. The relationship of

activities like Forum that activate and energize

communities to outcomes that actually improve

their environmental health or social-economic con-

ditions is clear and unambiguous. A Forum should

never represent the point of highest energy in anycampaign for justice; rather, a Forum is a perfect

precursor to jump-start the growth of critical aware-

ness, magnify capacity of nascent grassroots move-

ments, and develop agendas for future action. But

never assume that a successful Forum, in itself, pre-

figures sustained action and ultimate success.

Only through authentic engagement, however dif-

ficult it may be to nourish, maintain, and defend, can

these hopeful dreams for justice be transformed from

viable novelties into historical concreteness. Hope

is indeed the jewel at the core of the dialecticalmatrix of hope, itself, anger or indignation, and love:

what Freireans call the engine of real change

(Freire, 2004, pp. xxxxxxi). Hope is the essence of

the Forum, too, and Boals greatest gift to social jus-

tice. And that hope is also TOs binding promise to

stay connected after the show is done: to stay thick in

the mix of dialogue and struggle as a resource with

no strings attached, to stay eager and allied, always

there, always open, always in it for the long haul.

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Author biographies

JOHN SULLIVAN (Playwright-TO practitioner)

co-directs Public Forum & Toxics Assistance

Division of the Community Outreach and Education

core in the National Institute of EnvironmentalHealth Sciences Center in Environmental

Toxicology at OTMB. He formerly served as

Artistic Director of Theatre Degree Zero (Tucson,

AZ) and Seattle Public Theatres Boal Wing.

SHARON PETRONELLA co-directs the NIEHS

Center Asthma & Childrens Environmental Health

Outreach Division and works as a Center

Investigator/Environmental Epidemiologist in

NIEHS Asthma Pathogenesis Core.

EDWARD BROOKS is the Director of UTMBs

Childrens Asthma Program, co-directs the NIEHS

Center Asthma & Childrens Environmental Health

Outreach Division, and works as a Center

Investigator in NIEHS Asthma Pathogenesis Core.

MARIA MURILO formerly Coordinated TheatreOutreach for de Madres a Madres. She facilitates

Forum workshops and performances, and leadsEl

Teatro Lucha por la Salud del Barrio.

LOREE PRIMEAU formerly chaired the Division

of Occupational Therapy in the School of Allied

Health at UTMB, and is now in private practice.

JONATHAN WARD directs the Environmental

Toxicology Division in Preventive Medicine &

Community Health, is interim Director of

UTMBs NIEHS Center, and serves asPrincipal Investigator on Project COAL

(Communities Organized against

Asthma & Lead).


179

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process of script development. In S. Haedicke & T.

Nellhaus (Eds.), Performing democracy: International

perspectives on urban community-based performance

(pp. 121142). Ann Arbor,MI:University of Michigan Press.

Documents

Oppresed, Theatre of