ABSTRACT
When Jana Natya Manch (Janam) began performing in 1973, the women’s movement in India was beginning to direct its focus on domestic and social violence, the state’s apathy, and often its active collaboration in such violence. Janam’s program of taking theatre to the doorsteps of the people adapts and modifi es Brecht’s vision of a theatre for the working classes in the Indian context. Extending the examination of Dennis Scott’s adaptations of Brecht and Grotowski that postulate the heterosexual, male worker as the model Jamaican citizen-audience, this chapter directs attention to citizen-audiences of Indian drama directly infl uenced by Brecht’s vision. Although Brecht created powerful women characters like Mother and Mother Courage in his plays to indicate the important role of women in class-based struggles, he predicates the male worker holding a “pneumatic drill in his fi sts” as the representative audience for street theatre. Emphasizing women’s rights as citizens, the chapter seeks to revise Brecht’s emphasis on a gender-neutral (hence implicitly male) spectatorship by examining the documented and possible impact of Janam’s performances on multiple audiences, especially women from varying class backgrounds, including workers, activists, and students.
