The Protest and the Play
by Museum of Colour
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<p>In this two-part series, <em>The Protest and the Play</em>, we look back at two very different plays that were cancelled before they hit the stage – <em>Behzti</em> in 2004 and <em>Exhibit B</em> in 2014 – and use their 10 and 20-year anniversaries as a jumping-off point to ask: where do the limits of artistic freedom lie? Who has the right to tell certain stories? And would these plays be commissioned today?</p><br><p><em>Behzti</em>, a play by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, was cancelled by the Birmingham Reparatory Theatre after protests by members of the Sikh community, who were angered by the playwright’s depiction of a rape in a Gurdwara. The protests caused thousands of pounds in damage and forced the playwright into hiding.</p><br><p><em>Exhibit B</em>, a performance by the South African artist Brett Bailey, which featured Black actors chained and in cages, was described by its creator as a critique of "human zoos." It received five-star reviews when it opened at the Playfair Library