2 The war was fought from 1983 to 2009 mainly in the north and east of the island, between Sri Lankan government security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) over the formation of a separate Tamil State of Eelam.

3 Latour, Bruno, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 71–2Google Scholar.

4 This essay focuses on Sinhala- and Tamil-language theatres because of their reach. The Sri Lankan English theatre targets a much smaller audience.

5 Henry Jayasena's Manaranjana Wadawarjana (Captivating Strikes) was attacked by trade unions when performed in 1966. His play Apata Puthe Magak Nathe (Son, We Have No Way Out!) (1968), which depicted a brutal state on the one hand, and immature university students on the other, also courted censure – this time by the Department of Education, which wanted to ban it, as well as by the JVP, which found it nihilistic and disliked its depiction of students. See Michael Fernando, ‘Theatre in Politics and Politics in Theatre: Sri Lankan Experience since Independence’, Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences, 22, 1–2 (1999), pp. 63–76, here pp. 69–70. The government also banned a play by the JVP on Premawathi Manamperi who was gang raped and murdered by the security forces (Groundviews, at https://groundviews.org/2020/03/19/our-departed-colleague-saman-wagaarachchi-my-recollections, accessed 19 March 2020). Plays were also banned for their perceived sexual content. A scene in Rankanda (a Sinhala adaptation by Chandrasena Dassanayake of My Fair Lady which showed a sex worker) was banned by the Public Performance Board on the grounds of indecency in the early 1970s (Upali Amarasinghe, presentation at Theatre of Reconciliation: Potentials, Tensions and Practices symposium, PGIE, Open University, Sri Lanka, 4 July 2019). During the war death threats were issued by the Mahason Balakaya (a Sinhala ethno-nationalist right-wing group) against Dharmasiri Bandaranaike for directing Trojan Women in 1999 as an anti-war play. For an account of censorship of the arts in Sri Lanka see also Annemari de Silva, Limits of Expression: Creative Artists and Censorship in Sri Lanka (Colombo: International Center for Ethnic Studies, 2017).

6 Fernando, ‘Theatre in Politics and Politics in Theatre’, pp. 65–6.

7 Parakrama Niriella, ‘We have to constantly adapt to changing realities – that is the challenge of doing theatre today.’ Theatre of Reconciliation: Potentials, Tensions and Practices symposium programme, 2019, p. 9.

8 Parakrama Niriella, ‘Sri Lanka Needs India's Help to Promote Theatre in Schools: Veteran Lankan Director’, Business Standard, 13 June 2015, at www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/sri-lanka-needs-india-s-help-to-promote-theatre-in-schools-veteran-lankan-director-115061300209_1.html, accessed 6 July 2019.

9 Ranjini Obeysekere, Sri Lankan Theatre in a Time of Terror (New Delhi: Sage, 1999), p. 51; Kanchuka Dharmasiri, ‘From Narratives of National Origin to Bloodied Streets: Contemporary Sinhala and Tamil Theatre in Sri Lanka’, in Ashis Sengupta, ed., Mapping South Asia through Contemporary Theatre: Essays on the Theatres of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 208–37; Fernando, ‘Theatre in Politics and Politics in Theatre’, pp. 63–76.

10 An early instance in 1978 foretold a trend when a university street-theatre adaptation of Brecht's poem ‘Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown’ was halted by the police. An unofficial reason given was President J. R. Jayawardene's anger at the play's satire of his neo-liberal economic policies (department head, English, University of Kelaniya, in conversation with the author, 1978). Such dissent would be a recurring theme in the street-theatre performances of many groups established in the 1980s in southern urban areas of the country, as well as in mainstream Sinhala language plays on stage. See Obeysekere, Sri Lankan Theatre in a Time of Terror, pp. 51–4.

11 The JVP uprising (1987–9) occurred in the south of the country and was waged by Sinhala youth towards capturing state power. The insurrection resulted in a brutal crackdown by the state. The violence is popularly referred to as the Bheeshanaya Yugaya or Reign of Terror. See Mick Moore, ‘Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries: The JVP in Sri Lanka’, Modern Asian Studies, 27, 3 (1993), pp. 593–642; C. A. Chandraprema, Sri Lanka: The Years of Terror. The J.V.P. Insurrection 1987–1989 (Colombo: Lake House Bookshop, 1991); Rohan Gunaratna, Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? The Inside Story of the JVP (Kandy: Institute of Fundamental Studies, 1990).

12 Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 7–8.

13 Annemari de Silva, Limits of Expression, p. 3, notes that the simultaneous harassment of the play's producer, who subsequently went underground, lends credence to the opinion that de Zoysa's play was one of the reasons for his murder.

14 Sugeeswara Senadhira, cited in de Silva, Limits of Expression, p. 2.

15 Sumathy, Thin Veils: In the Shadow of the Gun and the Wicked Witch (Performing Activism) (Colombo: International Center for Ethnic Studies, 2001), pp. 4–5.

16 Sumathy Sivamohan, personal communication (2019). For descriptions of the plays and their performances see James Thompson, ‘Third Eye Celebrates the 75th Birthday of Kulanthai M. Shunmuhalingam – November 16!’, Third Eye, at http://thirdeye2005.blogspot.com/2006/11/third-eye-celebrates-75th-birthday-of.html, accessed 13 May 2019; James Thompson, ‘Shaumuhalingam's Three Plays: Review’, Third Eye, at http://thirdeye2005.blogspot.com/2008/06/shaumuhalingams-three-plays-review.html, accessed 13 May 2019; Dharmasiri, ‘From Narratives of National Origin to Bloodied Streets’, p. 221.

17 Dharmasiri, ‘From Narratives of National Origin to Bloodied Streets’, p. 221.

18 For a list of such Sinhala plays see Obeysekere, Sri Lankan Theatre in a Time of Terror; and Dharmasiri, ‘From Narratives of National Origin to Bloodied Streets’, pp. 208–37.

19 This was during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1981 to the British-government-funded Victoria Dam. Janakaraliya performed a street play critiquing the dam project, which resulted in the enforced relocation of several villages. To suppress the criticism the provincial authorities threatened to charge Niriella and JK with sedition. In order to avoid this penalty JK acknowledged it had ‘done wrong’ and each member paid a minimal fine of fifty Sri Lanka rupees. Parakrama Niriella, intervention at the Theatre of Reconciliation: Potentials, Tensions and Practices symposium, 4 July 2019.

20 See ‘Janakaraliya’, Peace Insight, at www.peaceinsight.org/conflicts/sri-lanka/peacebuilding-organisations/janakaraliya, accessed 6 July 2019.

21 In 2011, two years after the war ended, Sanjeeva Pushpakumara's film Flying Fish (2011) was denied a public screening under the Rajapakse regime, and the film maker as well as the organizers of its initial screening at a private film festival were questioned by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). The film's forthright depiction of sexual activity by the army was coded by the pro-government media as a conspiracy against the armed forces and the CID was ordered to investigate its funding and the acquisition of army uniforms as costumes. The management of the venue at which the film was screened was ordered to issue a public apology. Pushpakumara subsequently issued a statement stating that his intention was not to insult the army but to depict the life he had witnessed in the east of the country. See de Silva, Limits of Expression, p. 22.

22 Currently the award-winning author and poet Shakthika Sathkumara is on bail charged with inciting religious hatred under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act of 2007, and Section 291 of the Penal Code. The source of this charge is his short story ‘Ardha’ depicting, at the end, the disrobing of a Buddhist monk, which carries a faint hint of the monk's sexuality. Malaka Dewapriya is another film-maker and playwright charged under the ICCPR for his radio plays Tharuwan Saranai and Nihon Sepa Labewa which pun on commonly heard Buddhist blessings.

23 At the time Niriella associated closely with Christian groups such as the Student Christian Movement and Christian Youth Fellowship involved in progressive work on ethnic and labour issues.

24 Parakrama Niriella and Charlotte Hennessy, ‘Interview with Parakrama Niriella’, Janakaraliya.org, at www.janakaraliya.org/evalution.html, accessed 21 August 2018.

25 Parakrama Niriella, ‘Janakaraliya mobile theatre – Sri Lanka.’ Interview with Ajay Joshi, Janakaraliya.org, at www.janakaraliya.org/archives/interviews/e_rang_interview.pdf 2013, accessed 20 June 2019.

26 Graham Huggan, Extreme Pursuits: Travel/Writing in an Age of Globalization (Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2009), p. 6.

27 Naomi Klein in ibid., p. 7.

28 Ibid., p. 52.

29 Hasini Haputhanthri, interview with PGIE research team (2019).

30 For a discussion of the instrumental use of arts-based peace-building projects see Mary Ann Hunter and Linda Page ‘What Is “the Good” of Arts-Based Peacebuilding? Questions of Value and Evaluation in Current Practice’, Peace and Conflict Studies, 21, 2 (2014), pp. 117–34.

31 MIRJE was a coalition of left-wing political parties, trade unions, church groups and civil society activists which worked on justice, democracy, political and civil rights, inter-ethnic harmony, and a negotiated end to the war.

32 James Thompson, Applied Theatre: Bewliderment and Beyond (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2003), pp. 15–16.

33 Nilanjana Premaratne, Theatre for Peacebuilding: The Role of the Arts in Conflict Transformation in South Asia (Cham: Palgrave McMillan, 2018), pp. 124–5.

34 Arosha Tharangani, interview with author (2019).

35 See, for instance, Premaratne, Theatre for Peacebuilding, pp. 107, 116, 121; Nilanjana Premaratne and Roland Bleiker, ‘Art and Peacebuilding: How Theatre Transforms Conflict in Sri Lanka’, in Oliver P. Richmond, ed., Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 376–91, here p. 376. Janakaraliya's own evaluation of its programme participates in this discourse. See Janakaraliya: Evaluation Report (2006), at www.janakaraliya.org/evalution.html, accessed 21 August 2018.

36 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 143.

37 Ibid.

38 Bettina Jansen, Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 2–3, 14; Stefan Horlacher, Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical and Artistic Perspectives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 13–15.

39 Paul Richards, in Nilanjana Premaratne, Theatre for Peacebuilding, p. 8.

40 Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire, p. 197.

41 Baz Kershaw and Helen Nicholson, ‘Introduction: Doing Methods Creatively’, in Kershaw and Nicholson, eds., Research Methods in Theatre and Performance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 1–16, here p. 7.

42 Tilak Jayaratne, ‘Theatre of the People: Evaluation of Best Practices’, at www.janakaraliya.org/evalution.html, accessed 21 August 2018; Janakaraliya, ‘Evaluation at the Location Hambantota – 2007’, at www.janakaraliya.org/evalution.html, accessed 10 July 2019; R. Rodrigo, ‘Janakaraliya External Appraisal/Evaluation Report 2006–2008’, at www.janakaraliya.org/evalution.html, accessed 10 July 2019.

43 An exception is a short article by Dütsch, Anna, ‘Frozen Moments: Multi-ethnic Theatre in Sri Lanka’, Many Peaces, 3 (2016), pp. 9–11Google Scholar.

44 Paget, Derek, ‘Acts of Commitment: Activist Arts, the Rehearsed Reading, and Documentary Theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, 26, 2 (2010), pp. 173–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 176. Original emphasis.

45 Parakrama Niriella, interview with the author (2019).

46 Hunter and Page, ‘What Is “the Good” of Arts Based Peacebuilding?’, pp. 122–5.

47 Ibid., p. 125. Original emphasis.

48 Niriella, ‘Janakaraliya mobile theatre’.

49 FLICT consolidated its partnership with JK by integrating its technical adviser into the board of the theatre company and training JK members in arts-project management. At times this produced a tension between the actors’ desire to be artists and their being arts managers. Selvaraj Leelawathy, interview with author (2019).

50 Parakrama Niriella, in conversation with the author (2019).