Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 96

compensate for lost income since the men of Manguchak drink heavily to
cope with chronic stress and instability.
The workshop participants decided to create plays about the men’s
alcoholism; but as they staged the performances, a pattern became clear.
Each of the five plays began with an inebriated husband and inevitably ended
with a battered woman. Slowly, the women admitted that every household
in Manguchak contains this inebriated husband and this battered woman.
They exposed the hypocrisy of gossip through their performances and began
to brainstorm solutions.
In the safety of the workshop, the women acted out possible options to resist
domestic violence. Sachita � beat up the husband; Paro asked the village chief
to intervene; Sneha took the husband to the hospital; Madhuri called Prime
Minister Modi to ban liquor in the entire country. Their energy rose as they
tested out each possibility, but none of these options seemed feasible. How
can theatre hold up to such extreme and daily violence? What was the point?
In situations of oppression, theatre allows us to bear witness. It forces us
to engage with instances of complex injustice. Previously in Manguchak,
domestic violence was never discussed except within the malicious whispers
of gossip. The plays, based on collective stories, bypass euphemism, social
taboo, and self-incrimination. By watching others’ stories, the women felt
emboldened to share their own and defy their sense of internalized violence.
And through this act of witness, the women of Manguchak took the first step
in healing their community.
Despite staunch resistance from their husbands, fathers, and government
officials who were suspicious of the all-female organization, the women
banded together in order to improve their village. After the workshop,
the women lobbied for a greater police presence to monitor drug abuse;
they pooled money to report instances of domestic abuse at the District
Commissioner’s office; they advocated for infrastructural and educational
improvements in the local school. Their courage to resist, to defy expectation,
stemmed from the trust and camaraderie that was built through witnessing
their common experience.
International theatre also navigates sensitive and specific instances of
violence. For example, Yael Farber’s Nirbhaya, which premiered at the ����
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All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the workshop participants.
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