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Stripping to the undercoat: A review and reflections on a piece of organization theatre

Clark, T.; Mangham, I.

Authors

T. Clark

I. Mangham



Abstract

In this article, we review one ‘tailor-made play’, one piece of organization theatre called Varnishing the Truth. We then reflect on the questions we asked of ourselves while watching this performance and reviewing the video of it: how does this activity relate to its claimed theoretical foundations (Boal’s forum theatre)? Is forum theatre an appropriate model for organization theatre? Can ‘things be made to move’ by an activity such as the one to which we were an audience? In the process of answering these questions, we emphasize the reductive adoption of radical techniques (that is, Boal’s forum theatre); the depoliticization of corporate theatre; and, the limitations of the theory of negotiated order as a model for learning, given the discursive construction of organizational roles.

Citation

Clark, T., & Mangham, I. (2005). Stripping to the undercoat: A review and reflections on a piece of organization theatre. Organization Studies, 25(5), 841-851. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840604042417

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date 2005-06
Deposit Date Oct 14, 2008
Journal Organization Studies
Print ISSN 0170-8406
Electronic ISSN 1741-3044
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 25
Issue 5
Pages 841-851
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840604042417
Keywords Organization theatre, Forum theatre, Augusto Boal.

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