Forum theatre comes to town as students stage an interactive performance to create awareness against gender oppression and invite solutions from the audience.
Students from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology have brought to the city an inventive form of theatre called ‘forum theatre’ with the play Gender Shadow : An Invitation to Interrupt Injustice, directed by Arzu Mistry and Evan Hastings.
In this play, the theme deals with experiences of gender oppression. Inspired by real life scenarios, this play stages personal stories of conflict where the audience gets to interact and intervene in between the scenes and find out multiple solutions for a situation of oppression.
Mistry, a visual artist and an arts educator, came in touch with Evan Hastings, a drama therapist, in 2003 at Oakland Leaf Foundation, USA. This non-profit organisation dealt with creating awareness amongst students against violence and oppression. It organised Peace Camps or summer programmes for creating awareness through theatre, art, visual arts and music. The association of Hastings and Mistry was stregthened when Hastings came to India to lend a helping hand for workshops at Srishti with Mistry in “simultaneous dramaturgy” (actor audience interaction).
“I have been a part of interactive theatre, training theatre artists and students in schools and I’ve held workshops in prisons and juvenile homes too. My idea is to use theatre to bring about a change in perceptions. I have also hosted the concept of “invisible theatre” where actors improvise a scene from real life in a public space without the knowledge of people around and watch out for their reactions,” says Hastings.
After being staged in Delhi at Centre for Film & Drama, in November, the play will be staged in Bangalore at Opus this evening.
“It’s a transitional process. A different version of the same idea is being used to create a platform for people to give opinions to resolve gender oppression,” says Mistry. They will hold two more shows in Kolkata.
“The play is divided into two parts. In the first half the scenes will be enacted without interruption to make people aware of the oppression. Then in the second half, the play will be staged again with the auidience intervening and finding ways to deal with a situation of gender oppression. Some would settle for violence while others would opt for interaction to find a solution to gender oppression,” says Hastings.
This play has two characters and uses many methods to pass on the message of awareness. Shadows, shadow masks, shadow puppets, half-face masks, mimes and monologues with movement pieces depicting real life scenarios are used throughout the performance.
“We are divided into groups and asked to pen down our experiences on paper after which the script of the play is written, based on our stories,” says Neha Bhat, a third year student of Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. Here’s hoping the message gets carried across.
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