Drama therapy

Abstract

There is something unusual about the women in Beirut's Baabda prison. For one, they readily admit to their crimes, most of which seem to be innocuous social niceties or understandable reactions to violence: riding a bicycle; smiling at her father's male friend; begging not to be raped. All this, too often, when they were barely out of puberty. “Stupid girl! Stupid girl! It's all your fault”, says one of the young prisoners, punching a doll, and bizarrely, smiling. In Lebanon, where there is no civil law on a minimum age of marriage and only limited protection under the country's new law to protect women from domestic violence, Baabda prison serves as a reminder that this is a man's world. Yet, behind locked doors, it's the women who run the show, literally. Scheherazade of Baabda, a theatre project in the prison devised by drama therapist Zeina Daccache, encourages inmates to find their voice, culminating in performances that see the audience placed claustrophobically in the centre, with the actors circling around them. Daccache's documentary about the project, Scheherazade's Diary, will be shown at New York's Human Rights Watch Film Festival as part of the strand on Women's Rights and Children's Rights. Daccache's grounding as a clinical psychologist rather than a women's rights campaigner is clear, however. Her mission is to ensure the humane treatment of all prisoners—no matter how unsympathetic—and she has also worked in men's prisons with drug dealers, rapists, and murderers. These may be the very section of society responsible for the plight of some of the women in Baabda, but therapists don't choose who they treat. With the dates of trials and release hazy, added to the pain of their children being raised to believe their mothers are sinners, the women involved in Scheherazade of Baabda find comfort in sharing their experiences. Daccache reveals many “feel free for the first time because it's the first time they can talk about anything they want”. In their discussions, bitterness has been replaced with acceptance. They talk about even painful experiences such as domestic violence and rape. It's a powerful set-up, yet the result isn't as harrowing as one might expect. With the desire to entertain as much as enlighten, the pieces of theatre the women create are charming, amusing, and, surprisingly, in praise of love. The film's nuanced understanding of Lebanese society means that it doesn't set out to demonise men. Most of the women still dream of being married, after all. And there's a lot to respect for male prison warden Ali, who escorts each woman out of the prison gates to their freedom with a bouquet of flowers. There are good men out there. The Scheherazades of Baabda are still hoping they'll find theirs.