Performing freedom

If in the beginning was the ‘word’, theatre paved the way for the word to be used meaningfully. The most distinctive quality about theatre, one that distinguishes it from other art forms, is the interactive relationship between actor and audience, the engagement in a communal activity. What is of consequence is how we use this community creating quality of theatre in the contemporary world, how we shape the interactive and communal nature of the theatrical experience to make it a forceful political agency. 

In a world when things have really fallen apart in the Yeatsian sense, it is important to empower ourselves as best as we can. In theatre, that can happen when the audience does not cling to its passive role as spectators who merely watch, but rather transform into a community of individuals who can look beyond their prescribed roles within not just the theatrical space but also in the world beyond theatre. Only then can the true role of theatre in the drama of life unfold itself.

In 2005, when Juliano <g data-gr-id="41">Mer Khamis</g> was a well known actor in Israel, he was asked by Jonatan Stanczak, a Swedish/Israeli activist, and Zakaria Zubeidi, former commander of the Al-Aqsa Brigade in Jenin during the Second Intifada, to help <g data-gr-id="42">co found</g> the Freedom theatre at Jenin , a camp with 16000 registered Palestinian refugees in the north of the West Bank. 

This theatrical space aimed to provide to children and youth a place where they could articulate their feelings without any scaffolding, challenge existing realities and create at least an imagined world where they would be free from any kind of bondage. Juliano had inherited his passion for theatre and a spirit of resistance from his mother, Arna. She was a human rights activist who laboured tirelessly to establish centres of art and education for Jenin’s children, spaces where they learnt to negotiate with the trauma caused by the violence they saw around them. She initiated The Stone Theatre but that was literally razed to the ground in 2002. It was only fitting that Juliano carried forward her vision of a theatre that could become an ameliorative space.

It is now four years since Juliano Mer Khamis was assassinated brutally in 2011 as he was leaving Freedom theatre by masked gunmen. The assassins roam at large as they were never identified or caught. But Freedom Theatre carries forward the torch lit by Juliano, undeterred by the interrogation that the Palestinian members are subjected to from time to time by the Israeli Defence Forces. The question is, why was Juliano such a threat? Why was it necessary to eliminate him? Why do the Israeli Defence Forces try to intimidate those who are attached to Freedom Theatre in any way?   Because here was a man who saw in theatre and culture a means to resist oppression even as it ushered in a space where people could realise their creative potential. Here are people who are not only transformed from mere spectators to actors but in fact to what they call themselves- ‘freedom fighters’. And here is a theatre that though interested in improving the standards of the performing and visual arts in Jenin and breaking its isolation from the larger Palestinian  and global communities, has a bolder and more specific intent: to promote active resistance to Palestinian occupation. Such a theatre is bound to make the Establishment insecure. Especially since this Theatre is quite literally a mobile one: the Freedom Bus is the annual tour of locals, internationals and theatre staff through Palestine and which uses interactive theatre performances, drama workshops, live musical events, and storytelling to reach out to its audience .

In fact the Freedom Theatre is a space that allows its members to use an ensemble of artistic tools to decolonise the minds of people; hence their Drama in Education trains Palestinian educators in the use of drama as a pedagogical tool.  

Everything is geared to a <g data-gr-id="46">visual auditory</g> experience that enables the audience to perceive and inculcate exactly those myths to which the values associated with a sense of national identity are propagated through the plays staged by Freedom Theatre. By attacking Freedom theatre, the Israeli Defence Forces have made it very clear that they will not tolerate any community that attempts to question their absolute authority. They endeavour then to silence the voices and minds that are subversive.  

What kind of plays does Freedom Theatre stage? Iconic ones include adaptations of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Ghassan Khanafani’s Men in the Sun. These mirror and critique Palestinian society. Apart from these adaptations, Freedom theatre has some original plays such as Stolen Dreams, Fragments of Palestine, and Sho Kman(what else?). 

Recently, Jana Natya Manch, the well known Delhi based street theatre group has forged ties with Freedom Theatre. The two companies intend to collaborate and stage their joint ventures across cities like Mumbai.