Building on such precedents, theater practitioners designed forms that resist passivity. Bertolt Brecht’s epic theater introduced the “alienation effect” to interrupt immersion, forcing audiences to question, not merely empathize. Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed (1974) went further: spectators became “spect-actors,” stepping onto the stage to test tactics for real-world change. Theorists echoed the shift; Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator (2008) argues that viewers already possess the capacity to interpret and act. Consequently, the stage becomes a civic rehearsal room, where questions are collectively explored until an audience feels prepared to carry them into the street. [...]
