A Punchi Problem
Repost This ArticleDr. Rohan Edirisinghe, in a recent paper he compiled quoted G.K. Chesterton in ‘The Point of a Pin’ – it isn’t that they don’t see the solution, it’s that they can’t see the problem. This line echoed in my head for all the nights that I sat on stage observing the audience during Ruwanthie De Chickera’s ‘Forum at the Punchi’ last week.
For the unitiated forum theatre is a dramatic genre which compels the audience to involve themselves in the action on stage, suggesting methods in which the plot and characters can develop. Ideally, the play begins with what is known as a ‘stem’ scene, which leads the characters upto a point of crisis, which the audience is then presented with. This is the crisis that audiences will attempt – through the subsequent scenes – to understand and resolve. The characters that act out their parts will take the audience suggestions within the parameters of their characters and no dues ex machinaic solutions can be entered into. The idea behind forum theatre is to bring particular issues to the attention of the public, and through their reactions and the actors’ response to their suggestions to impress upon the audiences the nuances of, and the obstacles to solving, the problem.
For her five nights of forum Ruwanthie chose the topics of Domestic Violence focussing particularly on marital rape, and the Ethnic Conflict. I shall confine my comments to the problem of the ethnic conflict which was performed on three out of the five nights, as it is of particular relevance here.
The stem scene is essentially this. Anushka, the daughter of Tamil couple Ruth and Mohan comes home with her best friend Amali. As it turns out Anushka has been too upset to go for her classes because she has been harassed by the neighbourhood boys at the top of her road. This form of harassment we learn through the dialogue, has been systematic and today had been stepped up a gear with the boys forming a mock checkpoint and attempting to ‘check’ Anushka’s bag. The perturbed Anushka fights them off but can stand it no longer. She brings her problem to her mother and father. Mohan, her father, is of Jaffna Tamil descent and moved recently to a predominantly Sinhala neighbourhood into a house that had remained abandoned for some time. With this move the neighbourhood boys were deprived of what had become their playground. Some teething trouble with them had previously been warded off by Charith, Mohan’s friend from University days and the father of Amali. Charith and Mohan’s friendship dates back to pre 1983 days when they were campus mates.
Confronted with his daughter’s immediate problem, Mohan refuses his wife and child’s entreaties to go back to Charith for a solution. Mohan realises now that this is not a matter of playgrounds and cricket balls, but this racial undertone to the boy’s harassment is far more sinister than just ordinary eve-teasing. Mohan stubbornly refuses to deal with the boys and even more stubbornly refuses to bring the issue to Charith’s notice, despite Anushka’s and Ruth’s efforts to compel him to do so. As far as he is concerned the way to deal with the problem is not to deal with it.
The conundrum for the audience then, is how must this matter be resolved? The responses over the two nights I attended were interesting.
For many, in an audience where Sri Lankan Tamils were a minority, Mohan’s predicament was almost impossible to understand. On one extreme there was the expat who didn’t understand why Charith was different from Mohan. Duh – said the facilitator – one’s Sinhala, one’s Tamil. Ironically, a large number of expatriates in this country who are seen at the theatre are (yes, I am generalising) involved in some aspect of conflict resolution work. That they are so culturally insensitive to the details is slightly worrying. Many suggestions from non – Sri Lankans seemed to focus on the personal issues Mohan had – paranoia, et al. However, they were often given in the abstract without an understanding of why his archive renders such paranoia necessary. This understanding must be cultivated, for the peace efforts to have any credibility.
Many Sri Lankans too, their ethnic origins untraceable, thought Mohan was far too paranoid in the way he approached the suggested solutions of talking to the boys himself, or letting Charith sort out his problems. Many of the scenes suggested by the audience were aimed at getting inside the head of Mohan and figuring out why, oh why, he can’t simply just do what has to be done.
Many audience members could not for the life of them understand the issues that Mohan, a Sri Lankan Tamil, living in Colombo faced. As one Tamil audience member pointed out, Mohan’s problems were being trivialised by his friend Charith, who failed to appreciate Mohan’s gender emasculation, and also by the audience who wondered why Mohan was so paranoid. Despite Mohan articulating the fact that he had been detained and harassed by police previously, the audience continued suggesting that police help be sought, clearly underestimating the fear and intimidation felt by the Tamil community in dealing with almost wholly Sinhala speaking law enforcement authorities. Mohan in one instance refers to them as ‘your cops’ while speaking to Charith during a scene.
One hilarious audience member also asked for a scene in which Mohan is spoken to, and is ‘convinced to join the good side’. After I had reattached my upper and lower jaws I continued to be amazed at the complete and utter lack of empathy for the Tamil worldview. The ease with which the member of the audience (he may be an isolated case, but I doubt it) equated Sinhala with good and by implication Tamil with evil, rang of George Bushian rhetoric. The responses of the audience and the frequency of scenes via which the audience wanted to explore the Mysterious Mind of Mohan (he’s a Tamil you see…they must think different) showed only one thing. That the dichotomy (or trichotomy if you will) of the races in cosmopolitan Colombo is as strong, or stronger, than it has ever been. There exists an absolute lack of comprehension on the part of the Sinhalese, and this is met by a rock solid layer of mistrust on the part of the Tamils. Whereas trust is necessarily something that must be won, comprehension is something that can be forcefed.
Unfortunately however, an audience member’s suggestion that we examine the reasons as to why the boys act in this manner was explored only superficially. It appeared, from the scene that was enacted between Charith and the boys, that the propaganda which commands citizens to be ‘vigilant’ and ‘alert’ and treat everything with suspicion is a doubled edged sword. While it does prevent disasters in the nature of the Mt. Lavinia Bus Bomb, it also paints a significant part of this country’s populace in orange and black stripes. And I would assume that the latter is far more widespread than the former.
As it turns out, Mohan wants to send his daughter abroad so that she does not have to ‘suffer the indignities’ he has had to suffer. Strangely though, he remains patriotic finding a sense of home even amidst the trauma of day to day life.
A Tamil member of the audience with whom I spoke after the production summed it up effectively. “I had no idea Colombo audiences were so dense”, she said, after sitting silently through the performance. When asked why she didn’t speak up, she said it was for the same reason Mohan didn’t take control. “When 90% think like this what’s the point?” she asked. And I was at a loss to answer her.
Forum at the Punchi was designed to raise awareness. It achieved its objectives. However, what it startlingly revealed was just how much more awareness needs to be raised and how soon it has to be done.
Sophist
Sophist, Thank you for painting the picture of the plays. I felt I was in the audience though I was on the opposite side of the globe. I did see a similar presentation by Ruwanthie and others in August 2006 I think. I was caught up on the presentation and Ruwanthie’s skills on feilding the suggestions from the audience. I was also caught up in the characters, excellently acted and the audience response. I must confess that I was a silent observer and did not contribute because I was caught up in the emotions the plays raised.
I do hope such plays are staged in Tamil and Sinhala in cities such as Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mannar, Trinco, Batti, Amparai, Galle, Matara, Kandy where it matters most. Without a ceasefire, the awareness to be raised by theatre groups such as the Forum theatre, may never take place.
Sophist, Thank you.
Ditto to Ethir’s second paragraph.
Hat’s off to Ruwanthie and an appeal for more such initiatives.
It is indeed quite tragic that such ‘denseness’ exists in ‘sophisticated’ Colombo, especially given a fairly accurate presumption that such an event would have been attended by many Sri Lankans and expats who are working on ethnic conflict issues.
On the flip side, I hope this also highlights to many, especially my Tamil brothers and sisters, that we cannot really live away from the forces of racism and indifference, ensconced in our own little ‘separate state’, and that we need to find better ways and means of fighting for equality instead of further moving away from being humane Tamils to becoming demonic Tamils, through our lust for a VIOLENT emancipation of rights…..
When a community of people are discriminated, subjugated, ridiculed and displaced; the dignity and self respect of the community is at its bottom. When this happens, the individuals of the affected community too lose their dignity and self respect.
With repeated occurences of injustice and discrimination, any event involving the oppressor will be viewed with suspicion by the oppressed. This is a natural tendency of human kind and that is what happened to Mohan and that is a defensive reaction, which should be understood and addressed in this matter. It is not a matter for any ridicule.
Sinhalese nation is too defiant, arrogant and stubborn to accept this logic. Lack of comprehension on the part of the Sinhalese arises from this ugly character of injustice and oppression from the Sinhalese nation.
What is urgently required is addressing this character problem. The only way of addressing is through a process of rehabilitation of the entire Sinhala nation, and make the nation to realise this truth with remorsefulness.
“Rock solid layer of mistrust on the part of the Tamils”. is an acceptable reaction in such a situation. It is totally resistive.
I agree that “trust is necessarily something that must be won.” But it can only be achieved through the elimination of injustice and discrimination to the Tamil nation. Not through humour or ridicule.
The forum theatre that was performed at the Punchi Theatre last week was remarkably sensitive in its exploration of how ethnic conflict manifests in urban middle-class life. For me, the way that the ‘stem’ scene (described in the review above) set up the central issue of the gap between two (Sinhala and Tamil) friends’ understanding of the nature of the conflict was ideal for the demographic in attendance. The audience’s subsequent struggle to explore, define and resolve the problem(s) was valiant. Even if the exploration was a little tortuous at times, it seemed that the purpose of the exercise seemed to be to expose and confront the different perspectives that were inevitably present within a Sri Lankan audience (even one with a largely shared language and class identity). The reviewer above was deeply troubled by other audience members’ lack of insight into the realities lived by Mohan (and other Tamil citizens of Sri Lanka). To me, these concerns seem to be a continuation of the arguments that took place on the floor and stage of theatre during the show. The failure of the audience to agree is not the surprise – indeed the entire event would have been a flop if they had (and Sri Lanka would probably be a very different place to live in). The forum at the Punchi Theatre did succeed in bringing members of the audience into contact with views that they don’t usually encounter, and powerfully exposed the differences between us.
As much as I was moved and engaged by the event, in the final analysis I was also disappointed by its inability to move the audience (me/us/them) beyond a mere recognition of difference. This failing is more to do with design than with execution (or indeed with the audience), and has to do with the distinction between the version of forum theatre employed at the Punchi Theatre and the tradition associated with Augusto Boal. Forum at the Punchi used the forum theatre form to perform a liberal political exercise, enabling multiple perspectives and voices to be heard and voted on within a pluralist commons. By contrast, the forum theatre of Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed enables a more radical liberationist politics that identifies with the perspective of a primary protagonist. In the Boalian tradition, audience members are compelled to come on stage to work through a problem by replacing the actor playing the protagonist character and literally trying out ways of escaping the predicament she/he is in. Whilst this approach (at face value) may seem too crude or one-sided for dealing with the complexities and complicities of the Sri Lankan situation, it needn’t be so. Rather than permitting audience members the luxury of comfortably judging the characters and our fellow punters from a god-like ‘perspective from nowhere’, forcing the audience to work through the agency of a particular character (Mohan, Charith, Anushka or indeed any other) may have challenged us to acknowledge the constraints that they face by virtue of their social identities, and be more sympathetic and humble in our suggestions for how they might transcend these. People who wanted Mohan to shake off his paranoia could be faced with the task of making a police complaint in his skin. Those who wanted Charith to embrace an understanding of systemic racism might have the task of defending his views at his workplace. And others who wanted the teenage Anushka to confront a group of disaffected young men could be given a chance to do just that.
Leaving aside the details of how it might have been different, the architecture of Forum at the Punchi allowed the audience to remain mired in the usual competition between different truths about what it is to live in Sri Lanka. As worthy (and perhaps necessary) as these debates are, I’m not sure that they really get us anywhere – as they seem to always be articulated in rather grand, static and uncompromising terms. For me, the prospects for peaceful and dignified cohabitation lie more in our ability to descend into the particularities of others’ lives, where tasting the desires and fears of those who live with us on this island may awaken in us some dormant humanity. The challenge for those of us who wish to follow this path is how to facilitate this for ourselves and our fellow islanders.
T. Aruna
Indeed this is a “punchi problem” because it is within YOU ….
Compassion is required not only for those who are suffering – but also for those who inflict suffering. When you divide your heart and love some and hate the others you are in conflict.
This is the inner dimension we all overlook – the dimension that Ruwanthie is trying very hard to bring out. We keep ignoring it.
Sophist says – “Forum at the Punchi was designed to raise awareness. It achieved its objectives. However, what it startlingly revealed was just how much more awareness needs to be raised and how soon it has to be done.”
The forum was designed to raise INNER awareness. And it seems to have failed. This is not a process you can rush. Your sense of urgency – your anxiety to mass educate IS the problem. Nothing is achieved without patience and without respect for the human process of learning.
This is what Gandhi and Mandela demonstrated …. And it is a lesson that continues to elude us.
I do agree that we all need rehabilitation – not just the “Sinhalese”
My apologies if this sounds “grand, static and uncompromising” Sometimes we need to be very very uncompromising ….
I read Aruna’s comment above and fully agree with his idea about descending to the particularities of every situation …
Truth – for the participants in real life means different things – simply relating to this and understnding WHY we are all differently conditioned and WHY it is futile to despair over differences that are perhaps rooted in some common human frailties like greed, agression and indifference may be necessary ….
The lack of compassion makes us blind. Real Intellignece requires heart.
I too attended the sessions on Ethnic Conflict and commend Ruwanthie on initiating public debate on such pressing issues. Sophist could not have said it better when he described efforts at public vigilance to deter violence as a “double-edged sword.” Incidentally, Australia was one of the countries in which a National Security Hotline was established via which the public could convey information on suspicious behaviour. However, a renowned Australian terrorism expert provided noteworthy insight with regard to the various responses to the Hotline, when he commented that it has so far only succeeded in encouraging suspicion of one’s (Muslim) neighbour.
In Sri Lanka’s own case, with due consideration to its fractured history, the multi-ethnic polity that is should exercise due caution in all national security endeavours involving civic action. Thus, Ruwanthie’s efforts are welcome in the quest to encourage wider critical thought on such matters.
At the Punchi Theatre itself, it was apparent that the sentiments of the boys should have been duly explored. Yes, EVENTUALLY, they were. (As one member of the audience pointed out, there were inconsistencies in the personalities of the boys’ characters – which should have indicated the need for a closer look earlier on).
There is a pressing need to understand the root causes to the ethnic divide, no less so for the general population than for the political elite. It is thus that the sentiments that fuel various nationalisms need to be fully understood in order to introduce counter-measures and infuse political balance.
More strength to Ruwanthie and her team in their efforts to encourage deeper thought and exploration in the public sphere of these pressing socio-political issues that continually divide Sri Lankans.
We may descend to the peculiarities of every situation Ordinary Lankan (OL), but whether we can appreciate those pecularities is completely different kettle of fish. I microbiolgist can see far more things through a microscope than an ordinary layman. Similarly, those who wanted see how the present status quo affects Mohan could and (I say) should have done so.
It is the very blindness and lack of ‘real intelligence’ (your words) that I condemn. Especially among theatre goers who are rightly or wrongly expected to have deeper understanding of men and matters.
You must OL, forgive me for my impatience. But to me, 25 years of conflict is 83% of my life. And if in that quarter century the majority has not become aware of the unwitting torture they mete out to the minorities, then perhaps the time has come to fail them from the class of ‘human learning’.
The audience offered me no hope for potential learning or empathy or appreciation of differences. The lesson is a long time being taught. Hence the frustration.
While deeper human understanding and the pursuit of truth are all noble ideals, I am under no illusion that Forum at the Punchi will have achieved those ends by the end of its run. However, to ask that the audience appreciate the problems faced by the Tamil community, or at least begin to see that there is a problem – not much – I think, to ask.
T. Aruna makes a mistaken assumption that I wanted the audience to agree. No TA. I had no desire that they do. But disagreement must be borne of understanding, and a divergence of understood opinion.
Some of the comments, such as that Mohan should be shrug off his paranoia or – and this is verbatim – ‘be converted to the good side’, smacks more of incomprehension rather than reasoned disagreement.
Perhaps the chief fault I am guilty of is wanting people to realise the unacceptability of the current situation and climate, instead of which I should have been grateful that we took the first baby step on the long road to Utopia.
Sophist, I agree with you. We have been saying the same old thing for years now…
OL, you say that ‘this is not a process you can rush. Your sense of urgency – your anxiety to mass educate IS the problem.’ but how many generations must die off before we even wake up from this ‘slumber’?
We cannot wait anymore…
Precisely – and in my heart of hearts I cannot agree more.
If you cannot wait any more …..
pick the greatest weapon, and use it …
Personal morality is our greatest weapon
And we seldom use it
This is our tragedy
Everything flows from this
As you say “saying the same thing year after year” wont do. Our actions must speak and our tongues be stilled. We have no choice but to follow the paths of great men and women
- the masses may follow if they are ready and not if they are not ready
but those of us who can fulfil our personal journeys must not waste any more time
It is from the perspective of this personal journey that we must view the lives of Mohan, Charith and others. Lets get out of this sinhala and tamil thing. These are all human beings
they are all suffering
Any more of these forums coming up?