Power from Pulpits to Pueblos - Manifesto for a new kind of artistic, grassroots politics

The technique of Invisible Theatre was officially born in Argentina in the 1970s, as Augusto Boal was struggling to research and perform a theatre with a sociopolitical purpose in a “silent” way, to avoid political persecution in a country under a regime of dictatorship and terror that would punish any attempt to speak against the government.
The purpose of Invisible Theatre is that of publicly discussing matters of sociopolitical oppressions or to bring forth issues that would not otherwise arise publicly (even if present in a society), in a way that is both thought-provoking and safe. It requires a group of actors to perform a scene that clearly shows a controversial instance of oppression that people could easily identify with. The actors have the role to shed a light to the possible outcomes and solutions of this oppression, without ever revealing their
identity as performers.
It is called Invisible Theatre because it encourages people to react and to participate in the scene without knowing that it is fictional. In this way they unconsciously become spect-actors of a short play — whereas if they were aware of the fictional nature of the scene, they would merely enjoy it as spectators. Invisible Theatre is still one hundred percent theatre. It requires a script and the consciousness that the actors need to act like real actors. The scene needs to be performed as well as if it were on a stage with a conscious audience, even if the space is going to be unconventional and the audience will be unaware of its role as spectators.