ABSTRACT
The careers of many British Asian theatre artists are often themselves expressive of that problematic, conceived within a dominant, host culture; but playwrights in particular will aim to reach out explicitly to the everyday of diaspora experience. This chapter considers some indicative achievements by women in British Asian theatre practice, achieved in a robust independence and through striking initiative. It provides an illustration of the kinds of dramatic discourse about the experience of British Asian women elaborated by women playwrights. While the mediation of contemporary subjection through traditional material would continue to be a feature of the early years of British Asian theatre, an agitprop form of realism led to a satirical revue-style of performance that could tour easily, but also to issue-based drama. Domestic violence in a British Asian context was an uncompromising start, and tensions and trauma over death and marriage in mixed-race or communalist contexts have been the central subjects of later scripts.
