They all look extremely cheerful, with shawls around their necks – each in a different colour. One of them pulls out a bongo and they all break into song. Majority of the performers in this group are of Tamil origin, but the song is in Sinhala. “Time has come for us to awake and rise, The time is right to win the game of life” is what it translates into. This is how the ‘Shakthi Forum Theatre Group’ start off rehearsals for another one of their interactive and informative plays.
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Forum Theatre in itself is a unique and highly interactive form of theatre. “We perform the play once, and it revolves around a social issue, but the outcome of the play is the worst imaginable – it’s very, very sad and bad,” says Poopalasingham Pratheepan, performer turned trainer of the ‘Shakthi’ group. “We play it again, but this time the audience has the opportunity to pause the play and step in, replace a character, to change the course of the play and make a better ending”. This goes on for a few times, until the outcome is the best possible.
The concept is quite interesting since the audience chips in to create a good outcome, thus being educated on what they can do within society. A usual play would just tell the audience of what can be done, but they are not given a chance to experience it. “This is a very powerful form of theatre,” says Pratheepan.
There are certain rules that are followed in the process. “Firstly, no one can perform magic on stage,” Pratheepan tells us. “You can’t pause the play, make the character buy a lottery ticket, watch the draw, and scream out in joy saying that they won the grand prize – problem solved. No! The audience has to make practical changes,” he says as laughter erupts in the group. No one should depict acts of violence, stands the second rule. Thirdly, the audience cannot replace the main character or the protagonist of the play.
The British Council Sri Lanka has been one of the main forces behind the concept of ‘Forum Thatre’ and ‘Shakthi’, inviting John Martin of Pan Intercultural Arts of London to train a core team of trainers to carry forward their programmes. Shakthi started small with 25 members but later collaborated with other institutions to achieve the greater heights of theatre. Shakthi performed in Geneva at the ‘ACT2’ Cultural Relations and Conflict Resolution Conference organized by British Council.
However, Shakthi mainly performs outside Colombo and in the most remote areas of the country – where social issues are very prominent. Bernard, from Kilinochchi tells us that Forum Theatre has helped the people back in his village escape the tunnel vision syndrome, and has allowed them to see their options and think about new possibilities. An incident is recalled where a girl of 15 was forced into a marriage with a man who was a complete stranger to her. The girl had visited the play, and approached the performers.
“She told us her situation and the dilemma she was in, later on her father had an opportunity to see our play – to the girl’s delight, the father changed his decision and had realized what a short sighted person he had been,” says Pratheepan. These are a few incidents that show the real impact of ‘Forum Theatre’, but there are many more.
Recently Shakthi performed a skit on domestic violence at the British Council. Stumbling on to stage was an inebriated father slurring the Kolaveri Di song. He’s youngest daughter asks him for money to pay her tuition fee but he refuses saying he hasn’t got any money. The play progresses as the mother gives the daughter money as well as her husband—with which he buys more alcohol. In the meantime his daughter is in love with a man much older than herself who eventually date rapes her.
Pregnant and afraid she seeks her older sister’s help; the sister’s well meaning efforts however aggravates the situation. The tragic story ends as the abusive father arranges for his daughter to have an abortion. Discovering that her daughter is undergoing an abortion, the mother becomes distraught and hysterical and pushes her husband. The act of defiance doesn’t go down well with her husband, he reaches for a piece of furniture and serves her a fatal blow. In the next room the abortion goes wrong, and their daughter dies from excess loss of blood.
The solutions that were introduced by the audience were quite diverse. Many agreed that alcoholism was a major cause of domestic abuse and had to be curbed. The only draw back was that the play was bilingual making it somewhat difficult for anyone who is only fluent in either Sinhala or Tamil to follow the story. That didn’t hinder intervention as much though. Once the play came to a close, the team made sure the audience left the British Council on a high note as they sang and danced waving their colourful shawls.
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