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  • Jana Sanskriti: Forum Theatre and Democracy in India
  • Sharon L. Green
Sanjoy Ganguly . Jana Sanskriti: Forum Theatre and Democracy in India. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Pp. xvi + 166. $33.95 (Pb).

For more than a decade, Augusto Boal, founder of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), spoke effusively about the exemplary work of the Indian theatre company Jana Sanskriti. Formed in 1985 in West Bengal, Jana Sanskriti has grown into a network of "teams" doing TO work throughout India. In Jana Sanskriti: Forum Theatre and Democracy in India, founder and artistic director Sanjoy Ganguly shares his unique perspective on the work of the company, through an eclectic combination of memoir, personal philosophy, cultural history, and company-project profiles. A central point of Ganguly's book is that TO is an effective tool for generating collective social action; participants involved in this work come to understand better the dynamics of their oppressions and to recognize themselves as agents of change. Integral to the story told here is Ganguly's own journey from activist to theatre artist: "Jana Sanskriti grew out of the initiative of a non-actor like me, who had begun with the intention of becoming a full-time political worker" (12).

Ganguly begins telling this story in the first and best-written chapter of the book, "Celebrating the Rehearsal of Revolution," by weaving details of Jana Sanskriti's early days together with excerpts from a series of letters to a friend that reflect his own political awakening. In 1990-91, Ganguly encountered Boal's work and, under the influence of the ideas and techniques of TO, Jana Sanskriti experienced a "moment of rebirth" (23). This shift is reflected in the examples Ganguly provides of two forum plays, both about the oppression of women. Ganguly's descriptions of the process of performance, of spectators' reactions, and of the ensuing community dialogue demonstrates the book's central idea that forum theatre is an intellectual exercise that "helps us to understand the ideologies of oppressors and oppressed" (120).

This book is at its best when Ganguly shares descriptions and reflections of Jana Sanskriti's performances of forum plays or of his experiences facilitating Theatre of the Oppressed exercises. For example, in chapter two, "Boal's Theatre: The Recognition of Resource," he provides a detailed description of his "experiment" fusing two distinct TO exercises in a workshop. A sixteen-year-old boy creates an image of his family, which features a drunken man, crying children, and two women arguing. In turn, Ganguly asks the participants to create images that represent the protagonist's desires; the boy is then allowed to interact with these desires through improvised dialogue. Ganguly suggests that this process generates empathy for the protagonist, who has shared his image of oppression, [End Page 393] and because the group has participated in the exploration of these desires, the process also becomes a blueprint for collective action. Equally engaging are the descriptions of spectators' reactions to forum plays. For example, chapter four, "Theatre as Rehearsal of Future Political Action," includes a contextualized discussion of a forum play about the inhuman treatment of women in marriage, performed by one of Jana Sanskriti's many women's teams. Audience reactions moved beyond the particulars of the forum story to larger questions about ways in which patriarchal social structures maintain conditions that are oppressive for women.

The book, particularly the final three chapters, addresses key questions and concerns that should be relevant to those involved in the growing international practice of TO. Ganguly importantly points to elements that contribute to TO's efficacy, including the relationships established between the performers and spectators, the context in which their interactions take place, the attitude of the joker, and the opportunity for collective reflection. His emphasis on relationships, in particular, reminds us of the importance of intangible, perpetually transitive aspects of TO practice, which have an impact on its ability to be an effective agent of social and personal change. He distinguishes between Theatre of the Oppressed and the more patronizingly denominated Theatre for the Oppressed, cautioning: "Theatre of the Oppressed is not about helping others only, it is essentially about how to fight the...

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