Theatre of the Oppressed and magical realism in Taiwanese and Hakka theatre: Rectifying unbalanced realities with Assignment Theatre

How can one dismantle the oppressor's house without using the tools of the oppressor? Assignment Theatre, a people's theatre company from Taipei, Taiwan explores this conundrum by synthesizing the literary style of Magical Realism with the theories and practices of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed to act as a social corrective against injustice. Assignment Theatre's artistic director and founder Chung Chiao, a native Taiwanese playwright and poet, contends that his unique style of fusion theatre can raise a community's critical social consciousness regarding issues of oppression while empowering participants to re-establish authorship of their lives.; Currently, Assignment Theatre hosts Boalian-style workshops for such groups as aboriginal construction workers, secondary and university level students, the disabled, immigrant domestic workers, and farming women from a traditional Hakka village called Shigang. After a massive earthquake destroyed much of Shigang in 1999, Assignment Theatre traveled to the village and organized a six month long theatre workshop. One goal of the workshop was to enable community members to overcome their feelings of loss resulting from the earthquake; it was from this workshop that the Shigang Mama Theatre Troupe was formed.; This dissertation will examine Chung Chiao's fusion of Magical Realism and Theatre of the Oppressed theories and practices, taking as an example the 2003 production River in the Heart by the Shigang Mama Troupe; scripted by Chung Chiao, directed by Yueh Lan, and stage design by myself. Through merging these two seemingly different systems, how has Chung Chiao created an alternative reality within the Shigang Mama's workshops and performances where participants are empowered to analyze and challenge oppression within a "rehearsal reality" in ways they would normally never consider in their "daily reality?" Further, how does Chung Chiao's version of fusion theatre inform us about the theoretical intersections between Magical Realism and Theatre of the Oppressed, and how can his innovations be appropriated by others as a tool for rectifying unbalanced realities?...