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A Brief History of Theater Forms

Bibliography and Footnotes

by Alice Lovelace
Atlanta, Georgia


Boal, Augusto. (1979). Theater of the Oppressed. (C.A. & M-O. L. McBride, Trans.). New York: Urizen Books, Inc. (Original work published 1974).

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

Southern, R. (1961). The seven ages of the theater. New York: Hill and Wang.

Schoeps, K.H. (1977). Brecht. New York: Frederick Unbar Publishing, Co.

Catharsis - according to Boal's understanding it means, "to purge the audience through pity and fear." Catharsis is not found in Aristotle's Poetics but is closely associated with him. The term was first used by Jacob Bernays in 1987, who used it to explain what happens in tragedy. Catharsis, he explained, was "a purgation which denotes the pathological effects on the soul," of pity and fear. (Boal, 1979, p.28).

According to Schoeps
, "Many of the producers and directors who studied Brecht's theories in detail, approached the plays from such a theoretical angle the result was sterile, stereotyped as epic theater." (Schoeps, 1977, p.409). "Brecht's plays," he concludes," are neither pure form nor pure politics, but a highly artistic blend of both." (Schoeps, 1977, p.413). Critics of Bertolt Brecht, continue to use the term epic theater in spite of Brecht's rejection of it as a definition of his work.

As described by Koehnlein, B. (12/29/93). The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory.

Back to: "A Brief History of Theater Forms" by Alice Lovelace

Published in In Motion Magazine - February 15, 1996.