a critical stage: the role of secular alternative theatre in Pakistan
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Fawzia Afzal Khan sets out to map the development of alternative theatre, an aspect of creative articulation that has so far been ignored by those aiming to study the social and cultural history of Pakistan. Theatre, Khan points out, like other forms of artistic expression, suffered from the dictatorial and conservative interpretations of Islam under General Zia ul Haq’s regime. A number of creative avenues were actively suppressed for over a decade during the 1980s by the government and the military and religious parties’ coalition. A number of theatre groups, which in any case had a fledgling audience, were forced to close down. The primary reason given by the government for these draconian censorship policies was that theatre and other visual forms of representation promoted western and thus anti-Islamic values. The real motivation, however, as it was widely believed, had more to do with impeding platforms for creative opposition to the policies of the government. This period was particularly difficult for minorities, women and other marginalized sections of society as they bore the brunt of coercive Islamico-social and political policies of the government. It is against this particularly repressive regime that two major theatre organizations/groups came into existence. Khan worked extensively with one of them, Ajoka. This book charts out the social and professional history of this particular creative endeavour. The artistic energies behind Ajoka are of individuals who would classify themselves as comfortable members of the upper middle class elites. The focus of their plays has increasingly been on portraying the social and economic ills of the marginalized sections of the society, mostly on women who are exploited by various forms of patriarchal structures, be they in the form of men posing as religious upholders of morality or as the protectors of the general public in the form of police officers. Ajoka has maintained itself as a theatre with a social purpose rooted in the ideological struggles of the masses. Their plays carry a political message, always critical of the structures of state power, always siding with the weak. Khan’s work is important not just for documenting the role of Pakistani theatre and its connections to politics, but also for providing examples of the uses of popular culture to politicize people and bring about social change. feminist review 84 2006 c 2006 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/06 $30 www.feminist-review.com (149–159)
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While this book is important, there are also certain issues that remain unaddressed. Greater attention to the politics of running Ajoka theatre group would have produced a more nuanced analysis. For example, the following questions might have been useful: What is the relationship between theatre as a transgressive cultural text and its performance in a State-supervised and subsidized theatre complex? What is the relationship of politicized theatre with foreign funding? What are the international politics of funding politicized culture? What might be the local
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