Fitting the bill: commissioned theatre projects on human rights in Pakistan: the work of Karachi-based theatre group Tehrik e Niswan

Abstract

Theatre practitioners in Pakistan's southern city Karachi have seen a recent surge of interest in the past two decades by donor agencies from the Western world to fund theatre companies and employ various forms of theatre for development to service their agendas and areas of interest within their target communities. This trend may have lent a structure to the practice but it has also brought its own share of problems. Whereas the patronage of donor agencies has facilitated the spread of community theatre, it has also gradually defined the transformation of some theatre groups from their politically motivated ideologies to more reformist agendas. This paper examines this phenomenon through the practice of one of Karachi's oldest theatre groups, the Tehrik e Niswan (The Women's Movement), and its recent engagement with community theatre projects within its practice through two recent British Council commissioned projects on forced marriages (2004) and honour killings (2004–06). It also observes the role of Western donor agencies in creating the organisational structure for theatre companies, consequently determining the issues that are taken to remote audiences, thus contributing to the gradual change in practice of political theatre in Pakistan.