JailBirds.
Format: Forum Theatre Performance |
Cause: Domestic Violence & Marital Rape |
Project: Beyond Silences, Docu-Theatre in Jail & Outside |
Year: 2004
Jailbirds is a hard-hitting, provocative and confronting story that exposes the worst form of inequality, sexual violence in a deliberate, multi-layered, and creative manner. It is a story of a woman who has endured marital rape and witnessed sexual abuse within her marriage. Conflicting realities move from denial and confusion to admission, acceptance, and finally freedom, as the mother and daughter rewrite their experience of a sexually violent history. Anupa, the mother, has arrived near the end of her 14-year jail sentence for killing her abusive husband. In all this time Amrita, the daughter, has never paid her a visit. An accidental discovery finally propels Amrita towards meeting her mother in jail. For mother and daughter, the challenge of meanings involves reconciling history with versions of what, for each, is a life-changing truth.