In this dissertation I explore and attempt to answer the question of how political resistance is possible in what Guy Debord calls the society of the spectacle. My thesis is that political resistance requires training to undo-habits of oppression, and that actor training suggests at least one kind of political pedagogy through which resistance to the spectacle may be effected. Debord argues that we live in a society in which both economic and social relations are mediated by images. Images define the meaning and value of commodities but also the meaning and value of our relations to others. In society of the spectacle anything, even political resistance itself, may be turned into an image to be consumed. I attempt to ground Debord's account in contemporary culture in the United States by analyzing contemporary popular films, Working Girl, Pretty Woman, and Forrest Gump, and showing how the spectacle as an ideology works to perpetuate various forms of oppression. I also identify some of the mechanisms by which the spectacle attempts to colonize our imaginations so that potential political resistance is directed into reinforcing existing power relations. I then ask how it is possible to decolonize our imaginations; how might we develop truly radical imaginations--ways of perceiving and acting that do not reinforce existing power relations. I examine traditional Western actor training, and in particular Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, and compare the means by which actors learn how to act power relations. I examine traditional Western actor training, and in particular Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, and compare the means by which actors learn how to act to thinking about how we may train ourselves for sustained political movement. I argue that movements for social change, like actor training, must be an ongoing, embodied, playful and self transformative process. Finally, I suggest that theatre techniques used in actor training might be applied to political education and the construction of situations in everyday life. I discuss how actor training may be used to create collectives, develop anti-authoritarian methods of working with others, and foster ways of acting and perceiving oneself in relation to others which work to undermine spectacular ways of acting and understanding the world.

José Sanchis Sinisterra met en œuvre une poétique des intercesseurs qui déborde le drame conventionnel et l'entraîne vers son dehors, là où il est possible d'instaurer des zones de voisinage avec d'anciennes traditions théâtrales et d'autres domaines de création. Cette recherche passe par l’actualisation d'un théâtre baroque populaire tel qu'il se manifeste en Espagne au XVIIème siècle. Il s'agit de revendiquer une conception carnavalesque du drame faisant échec au « bel animal » aristotélicien. En pratiquant l'adaptation, le dramaturge cherche également à confronter la théâtralité à des œuvres porteuses d'un renouveau formel au profit d'une déconstruction remettant en cause les procédés dramatiques traditionnels. Son intérêt pour l'écriture de Kafka participe de ce mouvement général : l'adaptation lui permet d'importer dans le champ théâtral une poétique du discontinu qui déroge aux principes de cohérence, d'unité et de complétude de l'aristotélisme. Poussant cette recherche au-delà des limites littéraires, José Sanchis intègre également les sciences(notamment la physique quantique et la médecine) à sa réflexion afin de faire évoluer les conceptions admises du temps, de l'espace et de l'observation. On remarque que ces trois notions,qui sont celles que la physique quantique redéfinit en marge de la pensée cartésienne, sont généralement traitées au théâtre comme des réalités immanentes. La supposée unité de l'espace-temps marque un seuil au-delà duquel la forme théâtrale ose rarement s'aventurer. Or, c'est cette frontière que le dramaturge souhaite repousser, en développant une représentation du monde inspirée de conceptions scientifiques. Celles-ci constituent dès lors un nouvel intercesseur à même d'alimenter cette déconstruction théâtrale. / José Sanchis Sinisterra builds an intercessor poetics which brims over conventional drama pushing its boundaries beyond the theatre and overlapping with ancient theatre traditions and other creationfields. This search involves updating popular baroque drama, namely as it unfolds in XVII century Spain, claiming a carnival drama conception as opposed to the Aristotelian “beautiful animal.” Through dramatisation, the playwright also aims to confront theatricality to other works bearingformal novelty in favour of a deconstruction that questions traditional drama writing processes. The attention brought to Kafka's works forms part of this general approach: dramatisation allows the author to bring a poetics of discontinuity into dramaturgy, breaking with the Aristotelianprinciples of coherence, unity, and completeness. Sanchis then takes his search beyond literary boundaries as he brings science (quantum physics and medicine in particular) into his thought tomake current conceptions of time, space, and observation evolve. These three concepts, that quantum physics redefines outside the Cartesian logic, are usually dealt with in drama as immanent realities. The assumed space-time unity draws indeed a threshold drama rarely dares to cross. However, this is the very limit the playwright seeks to overstep by building a representation of the world based on scientific conception. These three concepts form thereon a new intercessor likely to fuel this drama deconstruction.