Bringing Politics to the Stage: Observations on Post-War Political Theatre in Sri Lanka

Image courtesy Floating Space production of ‘My Other History‘

 05/26/2014 

During the summer of 2010 I was tasked to assist a foreign post graduate student to conduct her research on Sri Lanka’s post war theatre. As part of this research we interviewed around 20 theatre practitioners from the English and Sinhala theatre in Colombo to encapsulate how the theatre and its practitioners are responding to the contemporary political issues in the post-war context and the to obtain their opinion on the state of theatre in Sri Lanka. We also went to see some of the Political Theatre performances staged in Colombo to observe what’s been portrayed and discussed in contemporary Political Theatre. My colleague went back to her university after completing her three month research in Sri Lanka in September 2010. Thereafter I continued to follow and observe Political Theatre in Colombo and managed to attend a considerable amount of productions staged from 2010 to 2014 for my post graduate research paper. This article is based on my research and observations on Political Theatre in Colombo over the last five years.

Bringing Politics to the Stage Observations on Post-War Political Theatre in Sri Lanka by nelvely