ABSTRACT
Hardly any of the Sikhs in Birmingham's Centenary Square that December night had seen the play, and indeed very few of the play's defenders had been in the audience of the 112-seat studio theatre during its nine performances. Rather than a battle between Asian religious fundamentalism and Western liberal principle, what followed can perhaps be better understood as a contest over the idea of the sacred space in both secular and in religious Britain. Since the play had opened on 9 December there had been a week of small, peaceful demonstrations in the square outside the Birmingham Rep, a concrete and glass modernist edifice in the city centre. Behzti opened on 9 December 2004. There were protestors outside the theatre from the beginning. Each member of the audience at The Door, the studio theatre at the Birmingham Rep, was given a printed statement which was also read out in the auditorium before every performance.
