Theatre and Revolution in Clinical Legal Education

How does a theatre method developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a Brazilian intellectual and revolutionary activist fit into clinical legal education? This paper urges the legal profession, and particularly law school clinics, to use the pathbreaking Forum Theatre method developed by Augusto Boal to train lawyers. Boal, a colleague and disciple of Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), developed Forum Theatre (also called Theatre of the Oppressed) to transform traditional sit-and-watch theatre into a democratic, participatory, and collaborative production between the actors and the audience aimed at achieving social justice. Spectators in the audience halt the oppressive element in a scenario, take the place of characters, and eliminate oppression. Because of the already frequent use of role-playing methodologies in clinical legal education, as well as its client-centered approach to legal representation, law school clinics are an ideal place to develop Forum Theatre as an instructional exercise for lawyers. This method offers students a excellent opportunity to identify oppression in legal settings, to interrupt it, to observe and check their own paternalistic instincts, to empower vulnerable clients, and to act in other more ethically informed ways. The authors introduce Boal and Forum Theatre methodology, review the role of Forum Theatre in education, especially the fairly sparse literature on its use in legal education. They then recount their experiences using this medium in clinical legal training and offer some suggestions and conclusions for legal educators interested in trying this technique. They also attached as appendices a selection of scripts that they have developed and used in order to illustrate some of the points made and to provide examples for others to use.