An extremely vocal audience gave off a thought provoking performance last week.
Improbable as it may seem, this is what happens; and this is what did happen at the Forum Theatre organised by Beyond Borders, which was held on November 20 at the British Council Auditorium.
While local audiences sometimes have a tendency to prefer being passive during a performance, this particular staging of Forum Theatre saw an audience far different, and far more interesting than what we usually see.
Forum Theatre, a little explored genre of theatre in Sri Lanka, is a form of theatre which allows for active participation of the audience who is given the chance to step in to the drama taking place. In this process the audience members could stop a performance, often a short scene in which a character was being oppressed in some way.
The recently conducted Forum Theatre session both entertained and started an active discussion on the theme. And this was the intention of Beyond Borders which is, as Deane Jayamanne – the executive coordinator at Beyond Borders puts it, "essentially a space for young people to work on development issues." In fact one of the main focusses of this youth run organization is peace and governance issues.
Based on a real life incident, the core drama spoke of a Tamil boy being hauled in for questioning after forwarding a message calling for tamils to unite, and his friend's dilemma of whether or not he should speak up against the injustice.
The audience was called upon for input. And they gave input. They spoke. And they argued. They acted, and spoke some more.
Amidst all the jokes, reasoning and argument though, it was obvious that each member of the audience came out of the auditorium that night knowing that they had learnt something valuable. No one agreed on one point in particular, and the central problem of the story (the lack of freedom of expression in times of war) was not solved, but what was important was that it got an audience to think and move away from simply being spectators.
"It really helped people think outside the box," commented John Martin – Artistc Director, Pan Centre for Inter-Cultural Arts, adding that the concept of Forum Theatre has also been introduced to post conflict zones, to great success.
How much are we to be held accountable for the lack of freedom of expression? Are adults partly to blame? Or are we all simply oppressed victims of the governance of an unfair system? A question like that is for Forum Theatre, and its each member of its audience, to decide for themselves. And they certainly did.
(Pix courtesy Beyond Borders). |
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