Conversations through theatre

CentreStage

Walk into a room at the Maati TV and Interactive Resource Centre (IRC) head office in Lahore on the day of their annual interactive theatre play and you will find an atmosphere that will chill you to your bones, in the best way possible. Their 16th festival was set to showcase short plays depicting the themes of human rights, peace and equality – and they did it well.

The first play was on domestic abuse, in a manner that made the feeling of abuse almost palpable. After the act, it was discussed that domestic violence happens in 90 percent of our homes and it’s not just the physical aspect of it that affects the victim.

“The women face the brunt of it but what do men face?” they asked and then proceeded to answer themselves. “The man has to live with the weight of the pain she feels.”

The next play was on discrimination between minorities in Pakistan and coincidently had Christians acting out the scenes. The theme for both the plays was discrimination; the first based on gender and the second based on religion and each sought to make people realize the impact of it.

The last play - before which the audience was told to brace themselves and not be ashamed to talk about the subject matter - was on rape. “I don’t know what the solution to this problem is but I have found that the more we talk about problems the closer we get to resolving them. Sweeping them under the rug is never the solution,” shared Mohammad Waseem, the director of IRC.

The play started with a group of boys and a girl making quaking sounds and when asked why Risham Waseem, Creative Director at Maati TV revealed: “Since these plays are usually done on the streets, it starts like that to attract crowds on the streets because these plays are actually for the community. From a story point of view, we showed childlike games and then when you are a victim of violence the innocence is taken away from you.”

Risham, who also acted in the play, mimed out a boxed-up area as a woman to show how there are certain boundaries women can’t cross.

Besides orchestrating these interactive plays, the IRC has workshops with students, radio programs and citizen journalism workshops. Maati TV is an extension of IRC and hosts web series promoting peace, human rights and democracy.

“This theatre has been happening for over 15 years and we were the first to start forum theatre in Pakistan, which is a form of theatre originating from Brazil. The play is half done and ends at a conflict and then a member of the audience steps in and takes a character’s role or builds a role and tells the audience what they would do in that situation. In that way, it’s a rehearsal for life so a community talks about an issue in the platform of a stage and comes up with solutions, debate and dialogue.”

Since the inception of their plays, the team has built on the concept and improvised and polished it for public consumption.

IRC’s festival happens once a year but their plays happen throughout the year all over Punjab. As an NGO, Risham shares that they get grants to train people in different areas of Pakistan. “All the people are non-actors – some are activists, teachers, students and the idea is that we use people from the network we’ve built over the past 20 years.”

The best part about the plays is that they are done in the language of the people they are working with at the time. The plays at the festivals were in Punjabi but Risham added that they have created over 1000 plays in 13 different languages. “Since we were working with non-actors we have a week-long workshop, there is no written script and we work with whatever language people are comfortable talking in.”

These narratives have been specifically designed to create a critical discourse within the audience and encourage us to collectively come up with solutions to our collective problems.