an old Canadian play: Marsh Hay

[Alan D Filewod]

Having stirred this pot, I'd like to endorse what Richard and Reid have said.
I recently had a distressing talk with a student who deplores the
"amount" of theory (which I had never understood as a quantifiable
commodity) in and around Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. She was
particularly upset that Boal himself goes on at length about his
theoretical geneology. This, she explained in a kind of nouveau-maoist
passion, was a betrayal of the oppressed. She believes that the language
of theory is designed to exclude people like her.
It's  a kind of intellectual khmer rougeism. My answer was that she had
more years of university education than Brecht. (Whose recently
translated journals 1934-1955) should be required reading for this
discussion).

Personally, I think this particular debate (theory/practice) has been
addressed in depth by much better minds than ours: Gramsci, Benjamin,
Williams et al.

Alan Filewod