Acknowledgments
Introduction The joker runs wild
SECTION I The Joker System on the stage
Chapter 1 What a riot!
Chapter 2 UPSET!
SECTION II The Joker System off the stage
Chapter 3 Being approximate: the Ganser syndrome and beyond
Chapter 4 What we talk about when we talk about community
Part I Ritual: play, paradox, and communitas
Part II Joint work, joke work
Part III A case study: Llano del Rio
Chapter 5 Encyclopedia of radical doubt
Chapter 6 The joker never dies: the world "as if"
(In)conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Mady Schutzman is a writer, scholar, theatre artist, and filmmaker. She is author of The Real Thing: Performance, Hysteria, and Advertising and co-editor, with Jan Cohen-Cruz, of two anthologies on the work of Augusto Boal. Schutzman is Faculty Emerita at California Institute of the Arts.
"These chapters are populated with jokers, clowns, schlemiels, fools, tricksters and comediennes, all of whom test the boundaries of meaning and find novel ways of telling the truth. Schutzman’s deep expertise in Augusto Boal’s Joker System opens a major chapter of political theater history to our contested present, offering readers methods for imagining a different future, and that’s no joke."
- Malik Gaines, Performance Studies, NYU
"I had the good fortune to see Schutzman’s play UPSET! back in 2006, and I can testify to the innovative, radical nature of seeing the Joker System in action. A lifetime’s worth of experiment and study with the capacity to unsettle our thinking has produced a warm, eclectic, and totally original work."
- Maggie Nelson, Author of The Argonauts
"A fine example of Boal's legacy in action--with wit and wisdom Schutzman captures the potential of a 'system' that not only resists convention but offers a transformative and at times subversive theoretical framework and performance practice."
- Sara Brady, Bronx Community College
"Reading this book feels like an affirmation of my own work, and that of many of the people I work with. It is also a guide and a challenge. It is a joy to have someone writing about this kind of work as she [Schutzman] does."
- Lib Spry, McGill University
