Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 28: Fabian Hartwell, an actor and scholar from London was felicitated by Natrang at its Studio Theatre here today.
The honours were conferred by Natrang Director Padamshree Balwant Thakur. Fabian Hartwell was here in Natrang to conduct International Theatre workshop ‘Theatre of the oppressed’ with the support of Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts. Fabian Hartwell is a recent graduate in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and Africa Studies in London. He holds a keen interest in musical theatre as both a performer and a teacher. His academic work focuses on the relationship between violence and masculinity in India, with his project for the Dara Shikoh Fellowship exploring ways to understand these phenomena through Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed.
Through the help of this International workshop, Natrang actors were tought some basic dramatic and storytelling conventions, building trust within the group and then later work on Boal’s Forum theatre. In the beginning of the workshop ‘Augusto Boal was discussed and various theatre exercises were explored. Fabian during the course of the workshop keenly used “theatre of the oppressed” technique developed initially in Brazil to explore the construction of society in Jammu. This form can be employed to depict themes ranging from the impact of conflict on livelihoods to the need for women’s empowerment in the workplace. The first workshop was followed by his work on ‘violence and masculinity’: Working with slightly younger students, Fabian broke down stereotypes of masculinity often associated with violence and to developed theatre practices that are gender neutral.
Following Boal and the aims of Theatre of the oppressed, he aimed to raise a debate around an issue so that individuals become aware of the different elements of the issue and go away still thinking about it, rather than having a cathartic theatrical experience, which they walk away from and forget about in five minutes.
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