Indian director Sankar Venkateswaran runs a theater in South India’s Kerala province, ceaselessly experimenting with the dramatic arts in his characteristic ways. His 2016 rendition of Shogo Ota’s The Water Station at the Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival, along with the rest of his activities, represents a bold attempt to reinterpret and update Western-centric understandings of the history of theater from the perspective of Asia.
The TCT ’19 performance of his new play, Criminal Tribes Act (premiered in 2017 at Zürich’s Theater Spektakel), will be his first in Tokyo. The “Criminal Tribes Act,” which was in effect from 1871 – 1952 under the colonial British government in India, sought to crack down on nomadic tribes (street performers, fortune tellers, peddlers, etc) and their descendants by proclaiming them “criminals,” with effects still resonating today. In the play, two actors speak before the audience in their respective native languages, English and Kannada. The stories of their own origins, memories, and research reports gradually throw into relief the structures of numerous phenomena, including the social discrimination that has emerged with the process of modernization, as well as the reinforcement of the caste system that has been in place since ancient times. Attending to these proceedings, we, the audience, must also come to confront the discriminatory structures lurking within the individual and social unconscious.
Following the two performances, there will be a post-performance workshop and an opening symposium on January 19th and January 20th, respectively. The workshop will allow the audience to share in a dialogue with the director and actors; the symposium will focus on festivals and theatrical spaces.