ABSTRACT
Brazilian theatre activist Augusto Boal’s fable of Xua-Xua, “the pre-human woman who discovered theatre,” connects the ‘birth’ of theatre to a postparturition moment of split subjectivity. Boal’s conceptualization of theatre as a humanizing process, an occasion to look beyond oneself at the moment of looking at oneself, can be juxtaposed with the fi gure of the “Motherwoman,” a composite character formed of three interlocking fi gures, who “squats as if imitating a woman in labor” and “mimes the action of a midwife attending the birth,” that provided an image of collective birthing and nurturing in the fi rst version of Sistren’s and Ford-Smith’s play Bellywoman Bangarang (56).1 The group’s process of making theatre took motherhood as a point of departure, rather than the originating impulse it is in Boal’s account of the birth of theatre. In 1977, when some women workers employed by the government decided to perform a play for Worker’s Week celebrations, the state was forthcoming with assistance in the form of institutional support at the Jamaica School of Drama. Since the political climate of the time was supportive of progressive cultural activities, the success of their fi rst production, Downpression Get a Blow, encouraged these
workers to nurture their fl edgling theatrical endeavors with the formation of Sistren Theatre Collective, a Jamaican grassroots theatre group that has become a model for politically committed postcolonial dramaturgy.
