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Leadership is Theatre
Book by David M. Boje
Publisher: Tamaraland (Las Cruces, NM), 2005 revised August 15, 2007
Chapter 5: What is Y (power-theme) of leadership? Will to serve &/or Will to power
ABSTRACT
This chapter is about themes, the themes of Power, from will-to-serve to will-to-power.
Bureaucrats are supposed to have that will-to-power. We all know that many develop a will-topower. Will-to-poser can be power for good, or power that is used in quite an evil way. Augusto
Boal’s book, Theatre of the Oppressed, is all about how to put power on the theatre stage, and
how put oppression on the stage that can accompany power. The chapter contains quite a number
of games of power, some we are using in the class as theatre of leadership training exercises.
Horse Island: Themes of Power (will to power and will to serve)
Once upon a time,
On Horse Island, WILL TO POWER was not considered such an evil ambition. McClelland saw power as a
trait and a basic need, Machiavelli viewed it as a part of the strategy of Renaissance princes, and Nietzsche
wrote a book called WILL TO POWER. Horses have a lot of power, but like princes they are trainable.
As those in search of leaderly theory set sail from the Pirate’s Isle of Traits to the Isles of Fox Behavior and the
Situation Isles of the Snail and Bear, power became less and less acceptable to the masses. Those who set sail
for the Isle of Horse Power see understanding WILL TO POWER as integral to leadership. Without power is
leadership possible?
Powerful leaders can fire, hire, promote and demote "at will." The horse can buck you off. There are trappings
of power, as some leaders have more privileges from power such as company cars and planes, more staff,
bigger offices and budgets. My horse Nahdion, is king of the barn, the alpha-male. We all are trained to serve
him. People applaud and emulate horsepower, comply with willing acceptance and some fear, or resist those in
power.
Various cultures approach WILL TO POWER differently. Some Latin and Asian Pacific Rim cultures prefer
lots of distance, respect, paternalism, and deference to those in power; authoritarian will is the way to lead.
Some Anglo ones prefer low distance, with more participation and democratic counter-balance to leaderly
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power. French German and Italians are thought to prefer an Eiffel Tower cultural model and like to see the boss
at the top of the Tower; leaderless, self-managed teams are not so popular there. Hofstede made a career
pointing out country by country differences. That is, until people began to find cultural differences within
countries that violated Hofstede's predictions, and now many see them as just stereotypes.
Among the inhabitants of Horse Power Island are those who debate the power of higher order and lower order
participants. Secretaries often have the power over information. And then there are the social exchange theorists
that see power as an aspect of everyday life, like borrowing something from a neighbor, knowing they will soon
borrow from you.
We now have a dilemma. A contradiction between WILL TO POWER and WILL TO SERVE. The "Y"
dimension of the IN THE BOX model of leadership, is settling upon an idea: that leaders learn to blance their
will to power and their will to serve. It is not an either/or.
Figure 1 contrasts two of three dimensions of our (in the box) model of leadership. Keep in mind our aim is to
get out of the box. On the X dimensions, the leader is either transactional or transformational. On the Y
dimension, they possess either a will to power or a will to serve. My assumption is that leadership theory has
moved away from will to serve, and restricts its sights on will to serve. Princes and supermen/superwomen are
not popular characters, yet they seem to be everywhere. Machiavelli was quite definite about the will to power
of princes.
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Figure One: The Prince, Superman/woman, Hero (with Charisma), and Bureaucrat
Nicoli Machiavelli (1469-1527) - Great Man - PRINCE Theory
Machiavelli (1469-1527), a diplomat and a bureaucrat with a will to power. He believed in the omnipotent
great man, the Prince of the Italian Renaissance at the dawn of the mercantilist era (See Figure One).
Machiavelli (1518) wrote a comedy for theater, titled Mandragola (2) that demonstrates the trait of a great
pragmatic leader: will use fraud, trickery, hypocrisy, harshness, deceit, and ruthlessness in governance in order
to secure a peaceful (harmonious) outcome.
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Plot of Mandragola - which character is shrewder than the next in tricking the others. The wealthy merchant
Nicias and his beautiful wife Lucretia are without child. Callimaco overhears someone say there is the most
beautiful woman living in Tuscany. He travels from Paris to seduce her, but her virtue is above reproach.
Callimaco enlists Ligroin, a marriage broker who knows Lucretia and Nicias -- to come up with a scheme.
Ligroin's plan is for Callimaco to impersonates a Doctor who will prescribe a special potent to help the
childless couple conceive a child. Callimaco must tell Nicias he can mix a potion and give it to Lucretia to
enable her to conceive. The problem is the first man to have sex with her will die from the side-effects of the
potion. Callimaco proposes a crafty solution: he knows a young man who will gladly die to have sex with
the beautiful Lucretia. Guess what? Callimaco changes his mask, and becomes that young man. But, Lucretia
is virtuous and does not want to commit adultery. So using Nicia's money, Ligroin and Callimaco purchase
the services of friar Frate Timoteo. The friar convinces the reluctant Lucretia to take the potion and sleep
with the young man (Callimaco). The friar tells the biblical story of Lot's naive daughters to justify Lucretia's
adultery. Lucretia is advised by the friar to capture a young man in the street at night, have sex, and have
him die from the fatal effects of the potion. Callimaco just happens to be in the right street at the right time to
be abducted by Lucretia. A twist in the plot is that Callimaco reveals to Ligroin that the potion will not kill
him, it was his way of taking her as a lover. They agree to stay lovers, and keep deceiving Nicias.
Theme - Use of fraud to accomplish a characters' objectives is acceptable if it will further their cause. Every
character except Nicia uses fraud in this play. Fraud prevails over religion, force, and intelligence. The
theme is it is acceptable to play on people's desires to get what you want. "Machiavelli proposed the
liberation of man from all moral values" (Boal, 1991: 73).
Characters - each expresses a moral quality (or anti-moral, i.e. free of any moral traits; free to be cold,
efficient, and calculating, the new virtues). In this play, it is the Machiavelli's moral: that the ends justify
(fraudulent) means. The characters Ligroin is Machiavelli's alter-ego: someone who does not trust to change
and believes all problems can be solved with intelligence and trickery. This is also play with a happy ending.
Nicias, though the victim of everyone's trickery will get an heir. Callimaco gets the beautiful Lucretia,
whenever he wants; she gets her young lover whenever she wants. And friar Timoteo gets his money. Each
has the enterprising spirit so important to Renaissance, whereas in feudal times, God anointed each character
with moral purpose (e.g. feudal lord was God's representative on earth).
Dialog - In a scene between Friar Timoteo and Lucretia, he uses the Bible in a Renaissance manner,
"showing that the Scriptures had lost their normative function in the behavior of men" and had become "a
holy repository of texts, deeds, and vesicles which, interpreted out of context, could justify a posteriori any
attitude, thought, or act" or trait (Boal, 1991: 60). This is the dialog that prompted Pope Leo X to commend
Machiavelli for expressing the new principles of the Church.
Will to Power:
Powerful leaders are needed at the birth of an organization and at a time of crisis (Jennings, 1960: 5). They
had what Nietzsche would call the Will to Power.
In leadership theory of old, the Machiavellian Prince and Superman (Nietzsche) theories of leadership paid
great attention to the WILL TO POWER, but in recent decades leadership has been locked in the prison
house of the WILL TO SERVE. I have made this Dimension Y in Figure One and crossed it with the X
dimension of TRANSACTION to TRANSFORMATION leadership which is now all the rage. My point is
to show that the top half of the figure is being neglected and marginalized in current leader theory.
The Prince shifts masks "from persuasion to cajolery, flattery to intrigue, diplomacy to promises or horse
trading, or to concoct just the formula to provide his escape from disaster" (Jennings, 1960: 5). The point for
Figure One is that the leader can be many persona and exhibit all four of the masks of Figure One.
Examples of Jennings' (1960) great PRINCELY men: Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Mussolini,
Rockefeller, Sr., Roosevelt, Henry Ford, and Fidel Castro. Where are the Princesses? Women do lead.
Jennings' thesis was that there are fewer and fewer leaders of the hero type and more and more of the Prince
type (1960: 5). And with modern bureaucracy, Princes are more subtle in maneuvering and manipulation
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people and with mush less innovative impact than in the Italian Renaissance.
Carlyle studied great men (the Heroes in Figure One) who would provide regimentation and organization, to
move from feudal to modern society.
Herbert Spencer thought that great men were the fittest, chosen by God to survive (Social Darwinism).
Definitely was conflicted over the WILL TO POWER while masking it as a WILL TO SERVE the evolution
of the human race; of course the rich would be the survivors in his storyline. The poor were unfit to survive
and should not be helped; conservative revulsion to social welfare was quite popular in Spencer's Victorian
capitalism days.
On the other hand, John Stuart Mill preferred great men who would restore independence and originality,
even independent thought; using powers of persuasion to enlighten the people.
William James disliked Social Darwinism (Spencer). James argued that there are situations and moments in
history that call forth the genius of great leaders to form special relations with followers, and without these
extraordinary situations they remain unknown.
Mill and James lost this race to Carlyle and Spencer.
As we shall soon see, leadership science developed a dislike for "Great Men Theory." Scientists tried to
isolate traits that differentiated Great and Lesser leaders. They could find few traits that differentiated leaders
and followers, so they gave up the search for some 50 years. But now, society is demanding leaders with
particular traits: spirit, ethics, trust, etc. And the antiheroic bias of leadership science is being severely
challenged.
And so, Machiavelli is now being rediscovered. Any with him we are able to see that many leaders are
hoarding power, behaving with stealth and deception to become great, for greatness sake. And with this
discover, we see that there is a dark side to leadership, the great leaders can mimic and even be charismatic
in order to create hell on earth. There are despots, petit fascists, and tyrants in the executive suite. There are
more princes now than in the Italian Renaissance, but they are cloaked with the mask of the hero, the
transforming, charismatic leader.
Princely executives like Phil Knight and Michael Eisner use propaganda to establish and perpetuate their
reputation as hero (Phil with Tiger; Eisner with Mickey) while sacking the Third World of its sweat labor.
As is Nietzsche and the Superman Theory of Leadership. Leaders are not just the good guys with the White
Hats, some supermen have iron will and become Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.
Popular culture books that teach the Art of Success are disguise will to power as will to serve. How much
difference is there between Dale Carnegie and Nicoli Machiavelli? As with Friar Timoteo, spirituality
becomes commercialized. Both speak in most mystifying spiritual tones about the most material financial
matters; both preach "where there's a will, there's a way" (Boal, 1991: 69, 78).
In sum, from great man theory, trait theory evolved into no-man theory and into an antihero science of
leadership, and the theory of (horse) power. The natural leader was dead, replaced by ghostly traits; feudal
power traits gave way to bourgeois trait-virtues of rational ability, industry, and entrepreneurship.
PART II: ALL ABOUT POWER AND OPPRESSION
It is important for Business College students and faculty to begin to alter mind-numbing dumb and dumber
classes using mechanistic leadership pedagogy and move to a social change approach Paulo Freire calls
Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Augusto Boal calls, Theatrics of the Oppressed.
What is Oppression? (Augusto Boal & Paulo Freire)
1.
2.
Being without power, when you can get power
Only doing what another wants you to do who has power over you due to their social position,
rewards and coercions, their technical expertise or referent (attraction) that you lack.
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3.
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Not being able to VOICE what you want because you do not believe in your voice
4.
Not being conscious of the power game
5.
Not being conscious of the resources you have to transcend oppression
6.
Being temporarily without power (disempowered)
7.
A conflict of power between the oppressors and the oppressed
Examples of Oppression
I did some brainstorming on kinds of oppressions I faced as a student, and since then. I want you to think of
your own list, but here is a list of my types of oppression to get you thinking. Build your own!
1. Oppressive Interpersonal Relations
1. The Girl friend who wanted to run my life and make me a slave to her passion
2. A female student to kept missing classes because of bruises and black eyes her boy friend gave
her
3. A female student whose boy friend had her living on a piece of Styrofoam behind his couch
4. A College Dean (not this one) who harassed a black female secretary into quitting because he
refused to protect her from a university employee that was sexually harassing her.
5. A woman who tried to force me to have sex with her to keep my job
2. Oppressive acts of Discrimination
1. A racist Army Major who transferred a sergeant running a craft store to the gym to pass out jock
straps because he hated blacks.
2. A segregated neighborhood I moved into where Jews and Blacks were at war, and I was in the
middle
3. A death threat I received for daring to found a Vegetarian Club on an Aggie campus
4. Being the only postmodernist in a College of non-postmodernists
5. A friend I know who got beat up for looking like an Arab on September 12 (he was actually from
India).
3. Oppressive Thought Control
1. The spectacle of 3,000 TV, Radio, Magazine and bill board ads I see each day telling me how to
be happy, how material purchase make me happy, what a society should be (greedy), and how
the world will progress (through biotech, genetically-modified foods, diamonds, and cosmetic
surgery).
2. Nike executives who blocked my publication of a chapter critical of Nike sweatshop contracting
practices
3. Being only postmodernist in a non-postmodernist College (again). I will add the story of the
MBA who got pissed over getting an A- instead of an A (he did not merit) and while on the
MBA curriculum committee lobbied to get my MBA course revised (and not one person asked
me about it).
4. Oppressive Employment Relations
1. See story of black sergeant above
2. Being told as life guard in Vietnam, that Vietnamese soldiers could not swim in the pool with
with American soldiers. Westmoreland's policy for a while.
3. Supervising college students in summer jobs to mow the grounds of a Navy base, after an
alcoholic supervisor had let them become slackers.
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4. Student in my class the works at Wal-Mart and Target for most minimum wage, part-time so
they do not pay him benefits, and sleeps in my class because he is too tired to learn.
5. Kukdong Factory in Mexico I visited in spring, 2001 where young women were beaten and sent
to hospital after daring to protest maggots in food, ask for bit of a raise, and organize an
independent union action. Hey they succeeded and Nike and Reebok are scrambling to deal with
the widespread student support for their effort. See http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/usas/
6. Lap Nguyen in Vietnam See http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/vietnam.html
7. Tiger Woods earns millions each month in Big Corporate endorsements, but workers who make
his Nike clothing in Thailand get to work in sweatshops to make him wealthy. Lek is a brave
women who organizes new employment relations in Thailand
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html
8. I love stories about Saul Alinsky - Like time he had busloads of poverty-strcken people from
Chicago guzzle gallons of water and pee and pee at the urinals so the Airport opening dignitaries
had to hold theirs. Or the time he took a bus load of slum residents to the Slum-owners' church
so they could tell their story to his church (he also did this for Synagogues). See
http://web.nmsu.edu/~dboje/TDcommunityorganizing.html
9. Wal-Mart has many examples of oppressive employment relations - How about that time WalMart accounting auditors were deceived by sweatshop factory owners into assessing a dummy
factory instead of the real one. See http://www.cleanclothes.org/codes/00-10-02.htm and more on
monitoring as part of oppression see http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/AA/monitors.htm
5. Oppressive Corporate Moral Decay
1. Enron's series of scandals concerning insider trading by executives, hiding the facts from
employees, cheating on their balance statements by hiding debt in off-the-balance-sheet
partnerships headed up (some of them) by Enron executives, and all that purchase of political
influence to change legislation and deregulate markets that Enron would monopolize. What is the
oppression? The loss by investors, employees, communities.. Add Arthur Anderson, who got
paid many millions to engage in creative accounting practices, tried to cop a plea by putting up
hundreds of millions of dollars of no class action would be brought against them. This is moral
decay, the preference for sticking one's head in the sand rather than saying, this is predatory
behavior that oppresses others. See Cartoons if you still don't get it: see Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/commentary/humor/kenny.html or 8 sets of
cartoons at http://cagle.slate.msn.com/news/EnronExtravaganza/main.asp and 1 and 2 and 3 and
4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8; More 1, 2,
2. An executive I know took over leadership of a company that was so corrupt, managers were
giving sales perks and prizes obtained from vendors to their wives instead of the salespeople who
had made the sales.
3. A company I know had so much sex harassment, the VP of marketing got fired (well asked to
resign) after caught fornicating with the sales manager on the CEO's new leather couch.
4. How about the new CEO I know who found out his VP's had some guy washing and parking
their cars. He tore out the privileged parking signs for executives.
5. How about the sales manager in Las Vegas, who intimidated verbally and sexually all the ladies
in his office.
6. See above on Wal-Mart and accounting auditors who sometimes are fooled, but other times are
complicit in helping sweatshops not appear to be sweatshops, which helps consumers say, I
know nothing about the conditions of the workers who make my clothing, toys, computers, etc.
6. Global Oppression
1. Kukdong again (a Nike/Reebok garment sweatshop in Mexico)
2. Wal-Mart again
3. Tiger Woods in Thailand again
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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I like the video, "Something to Hide" that shows students going to El Salvador to visit factories
making sweatshop goods for Wal-Mart, Nike and other corporations who claim not to be in the
sweatshop contracting business.
Global racism of corporate executives and owners of the first world getting rich off the backs of
workers from the third world. See Global Environmental Racism http://www.wcccoe.org/wcc/what/jpc/echoes/echoes-17-02.html
Some 400 billionaire executives control more wealth than half the world's population - See
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/In%20The%20News/population.htm or Main site
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/In%20The%20News/ Median U.S. hourly wages in an era of
globalization have been steadily decreasing since 1973 (from median of $11.61 in 1973 to
$10.82 in 1997 and still falling. So if globalization is NOT oppressive, how come more people
are working in low-pay, no-benefit, part-time McDonaldized jobs. See
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/388/leadership_theatre_event.htm#image_theatre
Out of the top 100 economies of the world over half are corporations, not countries.
The top 20% of the U.S. population has 84.6% of the wealth, while the lower 40% live on half of
one percent of the wealth
Sweatshop conditions persist in the U.S. because of the global oppressive practices of
transnational corporations. See Root Causes of Global Oppression
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/usas/pages/page_14_rootcause.htm Main Site is
http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/usas/
HOW TO CHANGE AN OPPRESSED WORLD?
Explore one your own situations of oppression.
Question 1: What are the types of Oppressions that you face at work (or in school)?
____________________________________ ____________________________________
____________________________________ ____________________________________
____________________________________
Question 2: Pick one that you can share in class (Does not have to be most severe one; pick one you could
share with one other person in class; You will not be asked to share the situation with entire class) Describe it briefly: ______________________________________
______________________________________ ______________________________________
Question Set # 3: Answer following SEPTET - Theatrics of Oppression questions about the situation of
oppression you picked - (If any question is not clear See short definitions or Septet Table that explains
how questions relate to Aristotle & Burke):
1. WHO? (the agents or characters - antagonist and protagonist involved in the oppression;
who is involved) ______________________________
____________________________________
2. WHAT? (act or behavior that was oppressive; what)
_______________________________
3. WHEN/WHERE? (scene or spectacle situation of the oppression; when and where)
________________________ _______________________________________
4. WHY? (What was their motive and your motive or purpose in the scene of oppression;
why are characters acting this way) _____________________________
__________________________________
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5. HOW? (By what means or agencies/instruments were you being oppressed; how)
__________________________ ___________________________________
6. DIALOG? (Write down a dialog/script between you and your oppressor that happened in
one scene of oppression; they said and you said, etc.)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. RHYTHM? (Describe one body rhythm [like a dance movement] and one sound [not a
word] that expresses your inner feeling and emotion of oppression during one
moment/act/scene of oppression. Next what body rhythm and sound rhythm express the
feeling and emotion of the oppressor during same moment).
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
8. FRAME? (See Definition - Describe the ideology/idea systems of the oppressor and the
oppressed person; It can be a world view that legitimates the behavior of oppressor and
another world view legitimating or rationalizing behavior of the oppressed person; Ph.D.
students see Grand Narrative)
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
Review the above list of oppressions and answer the following question:
QUESTION: What kinds of oppressive situations do you live in, work in, experience globally?
1.
E.g. position power in hierarchy
2.
E.g. others who hold power of rewards
3.
Others who have power to coerce/punish you
4.
Others who have expertise power, such as technical knowledge that you do not have
5.
Referent power of their attractiveness or friendship that is held over you as power.
6.
Other forms of oppression, such as a valued racial, age, gender where you are in the marginal
category of power (what you described in previous section that is not in first five answers).
What are Five Types of Power? (French and Raven).
1. Position power (legitimate status in hierarchy).
2. Coercive power (can punish people who resist; use of fear).
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3. Reward power (give grades, money, punishment, better assignments).
4. Expert power (have competence or expertise).
5. Referent power (use attractiveness or friendship to get your way).
Machiavelli
About the “Y” Dimension - In leadership theory of old, the Machiavellian Prince and Superman (Nietzsche)
theories of leadership paid great attention to the WILL TO POWER, but in recent decades leadership has been
locked in the prison house of the WILL TO SERVE.
George MacGregor Burns (1978) wrote an amazing book about the various types of Leaders. In Figure 1, he
wrote of opinion leaders, revolutionary, reform, government, and heroic leaders. MacGregor wrote about the
power of leaders, but wanted to limit leadership to a study of just the "Good Leaders" those who used their
Power, with a definite Will to Serve. He wanted to limit leadership to the positive side of moral behavior. He
was therefore not going to focus on Maciavelli or Nietzsche.
Somewhere along the line, WILL TO POWER became associated with the dark side of power, and the field of
Leadership spent the next fifteen years focused on WILL TO SERVE aspects of leaderly power.
See The Prince as Leader and Leadership Traits - Machiavelli for more on the dark side of leaderly power.
French and Raven (1968)
We think that top executive hold all the power, but in reality, many lower participants can resist change,
implement their own agendas and fight off boss-power. Power is a game of centrality in various resource and
person networks.
On the formal side of the game table, French and Raven see five sources of power for those seated at higher
level in the hierarchy; each has its tactical use according to Yukl and Falbe (1990, 1991).
POSITION POWER TYPES (have access based on formal position):


Legitimate Power - leaders are conferred the formal right to demand compliance from
subordinates. The tactic here is to stress the legitimacy of one's position and set role
expectations.
Reward Power - access and mediation of instrumental rewards others value. The tactic is to
stress the instrumentalities that come from doing the tasks; Accumulate things of value to other
or information of use to others.
MIXED TYPE (a bit of both though some place referent as a position type):

Referent power - influence stemming from one's affective regard (attraction) for, or
identification with, another person in power position. The tactic here is inspirational appeals and
ingratiation attempts that build trust and common interest. Weber (1947) looked at charisma that
is endowed by followers in the wisdom and infallibility of a leader with supernatural ability.
PERSONAL POWER TYPES (stem from personal talents and skills):
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

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Expert Power - based on expertise, competence and information (and knowledge). The tactic
here is rational persuasion. Tactic is to build your credentials (as you are doing now by being in
college or some training program).
Coercive Power- based on fear and the ability to punish and others fear of punishment. The
tactic here is to apply pressure; Accumulate punishments which could be levied on other or
accumulate damaging information
Consult - Theatrics of Power exercises and games based on French and Raven classification.
OTHER RESOURCES: Power Exercise - Health Organization (link down)- based on Star Power Exercise
Johnson, p. 229-270 in Joining Together, Group Theory and Group Skills (7th edition), David W. Johnson and
Frank P. Johnson, Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Exercise - Write a paragraph on "How do you get your way?" This was an experiemtn by Falbo (1977).
Power of Lower Participants
David Mechanic (1962) found that people without formal position power, not seated at the top, but "lower
participants" also exercise significant power. They control such instrumentalities as,



(1) access to resources such as materials and budgets,
(2) people needed to do a job, and
(3) information or knowledge, including knowing the rules.
If you want to test the power of lower participants, watch what happens to your access to these instrumentalities
when a secretary or clerk you offend tightens up all the rules on you. EPA and OSHA inspectors can mess with
you if you give them a hard time. Lower participants can occupy central positions in the information and
resource flow that give them significant sources of power to resist the power of those in formal positions of
authority.
Mapping Power Exercise - Develop your own power map. At the center of this map is YOU, and as you move
to the edges, the people who control resources (information, people, and information) you need to succeed in
your goals. Draw maps of power in an organization you work in. Include both your opponents and allies. A
power map is not the same as an organization chart, it is about the resources people have or do not have access
to and how they use them. A power map depicts who and where the resources and power wielders are in your
organization and who tends to ally with whom. Indicate: What are the different centers of power? What are the
different levels of power (from most to least powerful)? Who has power over whom, and what kind of power?
Use arrows or other symbols to indicate some of these relationships. Share the results of the activity during the
class session.
What are three types of Leadership-Theatre Games of Power?
1.
IMAGE – Rainbow of your desire – Your cop in your head that limits your power in a
situation – Your internalization of oppression
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2. INVISIBLE - Hegemonic power – power game whose rules are invisible to you – Do not see
your own complicity in keeping yourself or others disempowered and voiceless – E.g. Elites do
not want voiceless to speak.
3.
FORUM - Learning to play games of power – Trying out solutions to oppression in simulated
games of power – Practice events where you try out a solution to your disempowerment. Game
rules can be modified, but they still exist, to ensure that the players are involved in the same
enterprise of power, and to facilitate the generation of serious and fruitful solution attempts
(Boal, 1992: 18).
PART III: THEATRE EXERCISES AND WARM UPS FOR TEAM USE
Warm Up Exercises
Rules of the Theatre
1. Always protect the safety of partners (& community). Do not let someone fall.
2. Always respect the body of other persons. Some people do not want to be touched. When posing
characters, demonstrate (model) the pose you want and use sign language (hand & body gestures) to
direct.
3. Every story has many interpretations. It is about your impression, not getting the protagonist to bare
their soul (or story) to you.
4. Try to observe with an intellectual and critical eye, instead of taking the expected entertainment ride.
Getting caught up in the laughter, and becoming emotionally empathetic to a character's portrayal, will
distract you from seeing the effects of systemic oppression. Are you being a mimetic passive spectator
or an active intellectually-aware spectator?
5. If invited to be a character in someone's theatre, you may not refuse to play.
6. Directors' role is to start and stop action, facilitate reflection and discussion. As in real life, always obey
your director. A director is also a joker, a provocateur, a disruptor to mimesis, to help spectators from
taking the entertainment ride.
7. If anyone does not wish to abide by these rules, they may leave the theatre until the exercise is over.
First Exercise: Image Theatre - Story Sculpting Pairs Exercise - Pair off. No talking. No planning. Just
improv (react). To begin, Director instructs Person A to shake hands with Person B. Both freeze into position.
Person A unfreezes, walks around Person B, and imagines the next improv pose to make in relation to Person B;
A strikes a pose in new relation to B. Next B is unfrozen, and walks around Person A; finds a new relationship
that unfolds the improv-story. Continue until told to stop the story imrpov.
Discuss the exercise- how was it to tell a story without words? How was it to improvise the story? Were you
able to improvise without planning ahead?
Second Exercise: Image Theatre - Story Sculpting Trios Exercise - Form trios. Repeat as above, but in trios.
In this exercise two stay frozen, while the third unfreezes and forms a new relation.
Third Exercise: Image Theatre - McDonalds - Director picks spectators to be drive up window order taker,
drivers of cars, customers lined up to place orders, order-taker, fry cook, meat cook, manager. This is silent
theatre (no talking by characters). The director says animate, and the robotic humans perform the routinized
customer, worker, & manager routines.
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Stop action - ask the spectators how realistic are the efficiency, , calculability, predictability, and control (e.g.
role-scripting & surveillance).
Resume action - with characters incorporating the advice.
Discuss the McDonaldization of the scene and its hegemony.
Fourth Exercise: Invisibility Theatre - Introduce some sexual harrassment oppression - This is still silent
theatre. The fry clerk (male or female) begins to harass the meat cook (male or femaie). This need not involve
touching; looks, gestures, violations of personal space norms are enough.
Stop action - ask the spectators how the oppression could be made more realistic?
Resume action - with characters incorporating the advice.
Discuss the harassment observed backstage, and its relation to sustaining the advertised front stage spectacle.
Fifth Exercise: Forum Theatre - Introduce games of oppression & power - Verbal dialog is now permitted
(optional), but the action and meaning is carried by the animated body images. The idea of a game of power is
to set up a realistic oppression, and let spect-actors volunteer (or get selected) to try to resist and resolve the
oppression. Several characters stay in their roles as oppressors (antagonists). Protagonists (volunteer spectators)
after a bit of role modeling try out what they believe to be workable solution. The game rule is, you cannot
revise the oppressors or exit them from the game by firing them or replacing them with passive personalities.
The point is to let the volunteer work on their skills of resistance. If an oppressor's strategic power behavior is
defeated, then the audience can define a new game to play.
Example - A customer chokes on McNugget and raises a storming tirade at counter person, then manager, and a
police officer called to the scene. The customer is the oppressor. Other options are the manager who overroutinizes production, or becomes an efficiency Nazi; or continue the last exercise and let people work out of
situations of sexism, and/or harassment.
Director recruits characters to their script roles and gives command to animate the scene.
The oppression unfolds and plays out with a model giving one attempt at resistance.
STOP is called by a spectator (or director) and a new person enters the game, to play to role of the victim of
oppression. Usually, some spectator will suggest a way to play the game differently, and sees some solution
possible.
Discuss - how real was that? What would make it more real? Are there other solutions to try?
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The following section is a set of Games of Power I have developed to teach leadership and organization
theory using Theatre of the Oppressed pedagogy.
GAMES OF POWER
GAME ONE - COERCIVE RESISTANCE GAME [IMAGE THEATRE] Images of power balancing - Pick a pair of students to demonstrate. Run through the game, and then have entire
class pair off. This is an exercise in helping others to overcome your force. It is an exercise where you use force
without over-powering the other. Find a balance of coercion and resistance with a partner. Place your palms on
the shoulder of the partner facing you. Do not use thumbs to dig in. Use palms. Lean into them with your force.
Help your partner be 100% forceful. Stay in balance.
Part 2 - Entire class does this, and we discuss.
Questions to Actors: It is time to dialog. What image of power do you imagine as the game is played? What
situations of power and resistance does it recall? What situations of coercion and force and counter-force does it
recall?
GAME TWO - Part 1 of HOMOGENIZING TRIOS GAME [FORUM THEATRE] –
Chaos Theory Rhythms - Pick three volunteers to model the exercise for the class. Person on their left is
number 1, person in the middle is number 2, and person to their right is number 3. Person #1 does a rhythmic
motion with their body and makes a rhythmic sound (not a word, a sound). When the director (joker) calls out
“number 1,” the other two must immediately adopt that body rhythm and sound rhythm. When director says “#
2” then the other two must immediately do that. Then the director will say, “# 3” and the others will do that
rhythm. Do a couple of rounds of this. Next the director says “back to your own.” All three do their original
rhythm of body and sound. “Face each other,” says the director. Now homogenize. That is, with your referent
power and rhythm expertise convince the others to adopt your movement. And, also comply with the position
power of the Director, and engage in homogenization. Either the trio adopts one of the rhythms of the players,
stays with their own (non-compliance), or integrates two or three, or just evolves some new rhythms that the trio
adopts.
Questions to Spectators: It is important that we dialog about each game. How was that? What power and
compliance did you see the trio players of this Forum game perform? This is an objective description. Switch to
subjective questions. What subjective meaning did the game have for you in your life script?
Part 2 of HOMOGENIZING TRIOS GAME [FORUM THEATRE] – Bring four more trios onto the stage.
Have the five trios form line. Person to their left is #1, at center is # 2, and to their right is # 3. A director call
out “# 1” and that person sets the body and sound rhythm for their trio. All five trios are doing this
simultaneously. Repeat same steps as Part 1. The variation now in Part 2 of the game is that members may go
to another group when director says, “You may change groups.” The rule is you cannot be alone. “You may
change groups again.” If a trio becomes a pair, that works, but if the pair splits, you must join any of the other
groups on stage. You are never alone. “You may change groups again.” Groups move around on the stage. Keep
moving. Do not stay in same place. Let this movement between groups go on until there are several or two
groups. Director says, “Go back to your own rhythm.” Stay in the group and homogenize. Try to homogenize.
Go back to your own rhythm. Next, form one circle on the stage. Try to homogenize. What will you imitate?
What will you resist? Try to homogenize.
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Questions to Actors and Spectators: Start with the Image Theatre aspects (cop in the head). How was that?
Give an objective description of what you saw going on? Describe differences. Give your subjective
projections. What meaning did this recall into your own life? What did you project onto the images?
Switch to Forum questions? What solutions did people work out with regards to using referent or expertise or
coercive power in this situation? What other solutions would work in this game of power and compliance?
GAME THREE – LEADING OTHERS This game is for classrooms with those lots of rows and an aisle up the center. This is a Forum Game in which
spect-actors observe their use of position, expert, referent (attraction), reward, and punishment forms of power.
PART 1 of LEADING OTHERS GAME - Person sitting closest to the aisle in each row of classroom comes
to the front of the room (the stage). Form one line at the front of the stage, facing the audience. Person # 1 at the
left side of their line does a body rhythm and a rhythm sound that everyone else in the line, as they move down
the line, must immediately imitate without hesitation and keep imitating until a new leader is in front of them.
Person # 2 moves down the line and stands before each person getting them to adopt in turn their rhythm. When
person # 1 gets to the end of the line, they take their original position (but keep doing their rhythm), and awaits
each now person to instruct them in some new rhythm. Anyone who does not comply will experience a game of
punishment, called the power line. Spectators and each person who is a leader in the game can decide this. A
power line is when the punished line up and get into a single line according to their level of non-compliant noncompliance. The POWER LINE is an example of the hegemony or invisible pecking order in any given
situation.
PART 2 of LEADING OTHERS GAME – Entire class stands. Those refusing to stand or to be compliant in
the exercise become candidates for a POWER LINE. The row leaders go back to their respective rows and stand
nearest the aisle, in their position of power. The Director says, “Back to your own rhythm” and each row leader
does the rhythm that was theirs on the stage. This time all row members immediately comply with the row
leader and imitate exactly the body rhythm and the rhythmic sound. Anyone who stops becomes a NONCOMPLIANT and is moved to the front of the room to await punishment in a POWER LINE (could form as
two or more accumulate on stage or at end of the LEADING OTHERS game). When all rows have their
rhythm, Director says, “Remember this rhythm.” This is your original rhythm, when later on I say, “Back to
your own rhythm.” At the command of the Director, the row leaders, facing their respective row (aisle of
seats), moves one aisle to their right. As the row leader stands in position of power in front of the new aisle of
students, those students must immediately imitate and keep imitating the rhythm presented to them (referent
power plus position power and some expert power). Note: there is also reward and punishment power, in
determining who is compliant and non-compliant (the in-group is compliant, the out-group becomes the noncompliant who will be punished).
QUESTIONS to Spect-actors- How was that? Reflect upon your strategies of power, and the tactics you saw
in the game. What kinds of power and resistance did you see (objectively)? What kinds of (subjective) meaning
did you imagine in this game of power?
GAME FOUR – COERCIVE POWER GAME OF Friend or Enemy [Forum Theatre] –
This is a leadership exercise in giving orders.
Part One – Form demonstration trio. Person to far left is # 1, person at center is # 2, and person to their right is
# 3. Person #1 tells # 2 to sit, stand, bend one knee, hop, spin, put hand on face, etc. Person # 1 also decides
before they begin if they are going to be a Friend or Enemy of person # 2. To make choice you can be Enemy if
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your birthday falls on an ODD day of the month or Friend if it falls on an EVEN day (or flip a coin). MOST
IMPORTANT: Do not reveal your choice. Be subtle in giving orders, so that the person cannot easily tell. That
is, if you are Enemy, do not yell at them; that is much too obvious. The role of # 3 is to begin the discussion
phase after director calls the discussion time. # 3 gives the first observation, “I thought # 1 was being a Friend
or an Enemy because of these behaviors.” Then, person # 2 tells how they experienced friend or enemy of
person # 1. At end, person # 1 tells the trio if they were being Friend or Enemy.
Director then the trio to rotate, so a new person gives the orders, another complies, and the remaining person
collects observations in their head.
Part Two – Have five trios come onto center stage. In smaller classes, have entire audience participate in trios.
QUESTIONS to Spect-actors - How was that? What did you (objectively) observe? What feelings, emotions,
or meanings did the game provoke in you? What experiences or feelings did you project onto the game? Was
there anything you refused to do? How did it feel to give orders to an obedient partner?
GAME FIVE – IMAGE AND COUNTER IMAGE THEATRE –
This is part of Rainbow of Desire (Image Theatre). Half the class will tell a story of oppression to a partner who
listens. It must be a story of oppression that still concerns the storytellers today. Must be some oppression you
still worry about today. Half the class are protagonists (the storytellers or Pilots). The other half are the
antagonists (the co-pilots who listen). The pilots tell their story of oppression to the co-pilot. Describe how you
felt on one moment. Do not go into the history of it all. Just stay in one moment. Use Aristotle’s terms to
describe the characters, the scene, purpose, theme, dialog, and actions (plot). What is the oppression?
The co-pilot (antagonist) can ask questions to clarify the images in the story. Your task is to get a very vivid
image of the story being told to you and be able to picture the moment and its characters, and the oppression.
Pilot and co-pilot must keep their eyes closed. Eye contact is a distraction to the image and counter-image
building process. It is not about paying attention to their body language. It is an internal image, built with eyes
closed.
Once pilot tells vivid moment of their story of oppression and the co-pilot understands a vivid image of the
story situation, then we go to part two.
Raise your hand when you have decided on a story of oppression you want to tell to another person. You will
not tell the story to the entire class. Just to one other person. When you have a story come to the front of the
class. Director keeps soliciting pilot-volunteers until half the class is at the front of the class, on stage. He calls
out 1, 2, we need 33 more. Ok two more; we need 31 more storytellers. Keep going until half the class has
their stories formulated. Once this happens, the pilots are told they can pick anyone in the audience to be their
co-pilot. Pilot and co-pilot pairs go off to do the closed eye process of storytelling and listening. Everyone has
closed eyes during the process.
PART TWO of IMAGE AND COUNTER-IMAGE - Put everyone back in their seats. What couple has a
strong and vivid image? Both pilot and co-pilot have a strong image. What pair has this? Check to see if the
volunteer pilot and co-pilot have a strong vivid image. They each form body sculptures of the story moment.
They form two separate images. They can use chairs, tables, and pick bodies from the audience to be part of
their model. Pick as many people as you need. They are to construct an image and counter image on the stage.
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There is no talking. All instructions must be non-verbal. Simply model the part, and then have the person
selected assume an imitative and frozen position in the scene. Express the story of oppression in the scene.
Check the body-pose and facial expression of each selected actor. When both image and counter-image are
constructed, the pilot and co—pilot take the protagonist character role in the scene. They become part of the
moment depicted. Freeze both image and counter-image. No one moves at all.
QUESTIONS to Spectators – What do you notice (objectively) in the image and counter-image? Be objective
and describe what differences you see. What does this image remind you of at a subjective level of projection?
Note: the pilot and co-pilot do not every tell the spectators the verbal story. It is not about verbalizing the story.
This is not Forum Theatre; this is Rainbow of Desire, it is about the spectator’s projected images.
PART THREE of IMAGE and COUNTER-IMAGE - The pilot and co-pilot will now get three wishes. Each
wish is ten seconds. Pilot and co-pilot can modify their scenes, and rearrange character poses and expressions
and postures and positions. Director says wish # 1 and they have ten seconds. Wish 2, and wish 3 follow. Turn
the scene into what you desire. Compete your desire! It could be to punish. It could be to gain more power for
yourself. It could be to exile someone. It could be to reconcile. It is up to pilot and co-pilot to carry out the
Rainbow of Desire.
QUESTION TO SPECTATORS after WISH 1 - What did you notice in the images. How have they changes?
What projections are you as spectators making on the image changes? What is the meaning that strikes you?
Repeat discussion after wish 2 and Wish 3. Note: do not interrogate pilot or co-pilot or any actor about what
they do. The actors just stay frozen in the image. The point is to describe the image and counter image that the
antagonist and protagonist have built and note the differences and the spectator projections of meaning. What
else do you see, says the Director after each observation by a spectator? Note: These are frozen poses. No
taking by the actors. Project onto the image. We shall never know the story. The image is there to project
upon, any desire we want. We project, we do not seek interpretations.
PART THREE(cont'd) of IMAGE AND COUNTER-IMAGE – If appropriate grant 4th, 5th, and 6th wishes.
GAME SIX – OPPRESSION RHYTHM GAME Think of an oppression and make the sound (rhythm) and the body-rhythm that represents for you the moment
of oppression.
PART 1 of OPPRESSION RHYTHM GAME - Do this first with about ten volunteers. Have them do their
own particular body and sound rhythm that conveys their moment of oppression, of being oppressed. Match up
the similar sounds and body-rhythms in to pairs or small groups. Have actors discuss any similarities in their
stories of oppression. Test afterwards to see if similar rhythms expressed any story similarities, in terms of the
types of oppression.
PART 2 of OPPRESSION RHYTHM GAME – Have entire class express their sound and body rhythm all at
once. Director, once everyone has their rhythm engaged, asks them to find one person with the most similar
sound and body rhythm. They homogenize their differences into an integrated rhythm, they both agree upon
(consensually-negotiated and without words of instruction). They sit and swap stories. Are their similarities?
QUESTIONS to Spect-actors? How was that? What did you observe about your similar images and similar
story of oppression moments?
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GAME SEVEN – ANALYTIC IMAGE of DESIRE GAME –
Think about one situation where you are oppressed. It must be something that is not resolved for you. You have
not figured it out. You want more clarity about it. Someone, for example, with whom things don’t go so well
as you would like them to go. Ask for three volunteers to tell their story. The spectators will pick one story that
is not the best, but has the most resonance for the class. Pick a situation you would like to analyze, where it is
not very clear who is oppressing whom. Pick one that is not settled. We will then pick five pairs that we will
match to the selected story. The three stories are shared. The spectators vote by raising their hands as often as
they want, picking the story that has resonance for them. Which story do we choose? Remember it is not the
best story; it is about the meaning for you. If we do not pick the story, it does not mean we do not care about it
or the teller.
PART 1 - The protagonist is directed to choose one person from the spectators to be the antagonist in their story
of oppression. The protagonist explains to them what they want from the character. Because theatre is
basically a conflict between characters (their emotions or states of mind) theatre must have conflict. What does
the character want from you? What is their purpose? What do you want from the character? The antagonist can
ask questions to get role clarity. How does this character behave? What is their mood? Are they superficial,
serious, bubbly? What are the consequences of this situation for you? Where does this scene take place? When
is this scene happening?
Take questions from the spectators before the game begins. There are no questions during the drama.
Instructions: Both players start thinking out loud. Facing the spectators, not each other. Engage in monolog,
before your slash. Speak the internal monolog, your thoughts, that come to your mind. Do not listen to the other
person’s monolog. Prepare with monolog.
Next engage in your scene of conflict and contest. Start with monolog, and then keep going as you improv the
scene. But, stay in your character. Do not resolve the situation. It is about images and desires, not about finding
solutions.
PART 2 – of ANALYTIC IMAGES – Ask for five people who have a vivid image of the protagonist and five
with one of the antagonist. It is not an imitation; it is about bringing some small projection you have to the
character to light on stage. It is your projection into the character. It is about showing the protagonist or
antagonist some aspect that is hidden from their view –some blind spot you want to show (Like in Jo-Hari
Window). Director tells spectator to strike a pose, make a frozen image of the character, as they want to project
that character. Freeze the images.
The spectators are asked by the Director to match the people on stage to form conflict-pairs. Which one goes
with which one? Director tries out various matches and gets audience reaction. Is this a match?
PART 3 Each pair now does on stage, on pair at a time to perform the scene in its new interpretation. The
image body pose remains frozen, but can move around the scene. The dialog is improvised, but it is not about
resolving. It is about staying in the character. This is not Forum Theatre, is Image Theatre (Rainbow of Desire).
PART 4 - The original storyteller (protagonist) is brought back on stage. The director tells the protagonist they
are to stand behind the protagonist in the last pair and imitate the image and the dialog exactly. The scene
commences with the matched pair, and the storyteller is directly behind the protagonist in the pair, doing
imitative work. When the storyteller has it, the Director says “You may come out” to the protagonist in the
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matched pair. Then it is the storyteller with the antagonist of the pair, doing the scene in imitation. As this
settles in, the Director says, “You may change” or “you may stay with the pose and the dialog.” The storyteller
can keep the solution if it is better for them. Or, they can resist and reject both the pose and the dialog, and
improvise something new. It is a choice point.
PART 5 – The scene is repeated with each of the other four matched pairs.
PART 6 - Bring the original antagonist on stage with the five protagonist volunteers from the skits. Have all
five antagonists do their pose, and their dialog. The original antagonist can move close to each one and dialog
with them, and eventually settles in with a relationship that is strongest link for them. Go to each and relate
with them. Settle in one one.
PART 7 – The five images of the protagonists repeat the last step. The five images talk to the original
storyteller (protagonist). All the images at one time are part of the scene. The storyteller goes to each, and
settle with one.
PART 8 – If all five images were refused by the storyteller in the matched pair drams, then try this part. The
storyteller and original antagonist are center stage. The five protagonists set up opposite the storyteller. The
five antagonists set up opposite the original antagonist. The outer ring can say something like, “OHHH,
OHHH” to let the storyteller know they have fallen into one of the matched pair protagonist character images or
dialog. For the antagonists, the same signal and body motions clues in the original antagonist to try their pose
or dialog. It is a game of influencing the images. The protagonist resists all the images opposite them in the
outer circle. The original antagonist takes cues from the outer ring, and experiments with new poses and dialog.
The protagonist is now trying to resolve the situation. We are moving from image construction to a game of
Forum Theatre. We are trying out solutions.
QUESTIONS to Spectators – How was that? And questions to actors, how was that? Way what it feels like to
go through seeing all sides of your self? What did you learn? Spectators, what power dynamics did you see
exhibited in the scenes? When did dialog happen? Note: This discussion has parts that are about Images of
Desire and the spectator projections. It has parts that are about solutions. Try to keep the two types of discussion
separate. To the spectators – could you see that the scenes were about you? Sometimes you are that character?
Sometimes this is the tactic you use.
In some situations, both sides oppress one another. It is not always clear show is the oppressor? The point is that
in the conflict, they have not established a dialog.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - What kinds of power tactics were used in the scenes? (Position, reward,
punishment, expert, referent, & coercive).
Why does the problem have to be solved by them? Can the problem be resolved by the social system they are
in? What is the systemic oppression in the situation? Is there a solution that would work? Or is this set of skits
about the desires each person had? Is it about cops in the head or about solutions in the situation? What is the
agent – scene ratio?
If this becomes Forum Theatre – we can replace the storyteller character with a volunteer and try out different
solutions to the problem. If it is an Image Theatre, then we want to explore the analysis of the images in the
scene. If someone knows how to solve it as a Forum Theatre, let him or her take the stage and perform the
solution. If it is more about Image Theatre, then let’s try pilot and co-pilot, or another Image Theatre game.
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