Kolkata: A mime play portraying ‘Iron Lady’ Irom Chanu Sharmila’s 11-year-long hunger strike demanding repeal of the ‘draconian’ Armed Forces Special Powers Act has drawn applause at an international theatre festival in South Korea.
The one-hour stage drama Mirel Masingkha or ‘The will of soul’, based on Sharmila’s lone struggle, was showcased at the Chuncheon Festival in the South Korean city of Gwangju last week in homage to the victims of the 1980 Gwangju massacre by a military dictator.
A 15-member team of Imphal’s Kanglei Mime Theatre Repertory presented the non-verbal play which was an instant hit as it struck a common chord with the Koreans.
“Our play reflects the atrocities in Manipur by the Indian military forces.
This is similar to the oppression under Chun Doo-hwan’s military dictatorship in Gwangju during the 80’s,” the play’s director, Dr Sadananda Singh, told PTI from Imphal.
Incidentally, Sharmila, who is forcibly nose-fed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal since November 2000, had won the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights in 2007.
“The success of the play was sealed when the audience and press barged into the green room after the performance. Someone from the audience came up and admitted that he cried while watching. He said Koreans share our pain as they had also suffered similarly 30 years ago,” Singh said.
Venerating the unrelenting spirit of the 39-year-old civil rights activist through gestures, facial expressions and other body motions, the silent play is also an effort to garner international support for Sharmila’s fight against AFSPA.
“As artists it is our duty to reflect what is going on in our society and take up issues of social importance.
This play is our contribution to Sharmila’s cause which is also the cause of all Manipuris,” the veteran mime artist said. Sharmila’s non-violent resistance has become a nucleus for collective protest against the AFSPA, under which the security forces can even kill people without fearing prosecution.
Earlier, the Kanglei Mime Theatre Repertory had presented the play ‘Power’s Act’, based on a woman tortured by the Army.
Established in the year 1987, the mime group has participated in a number of international festivals like the International Puppet and Mime Festival of Kilkis in Greece and International Festival of Mime and Physical Theatre held at Macedonia. (PTI)