In Mahendranagar three performances had been planned. The first would take place at the market in town, secondly they would go to the district governmental offices and perform for both the staff and anyone else who walked by. The final performance would be indoors at an interaction program organized with local human rights activists and lawyers. After the three performances there would only be enough time for a quick meal before the volunteers got back on the bus to drive to their next performance about an hour away in Dhungadi.

Arriving at the market place we found the day’s strong sun had already sent people scurrying for shade even at 9am. Picking a place to perform where there was shade for the audience as well as enough room for a large crowd took a few minutes of deliberation. Once the location had been selected Bijay, the captain of the volunteer team, took out a bag of chalk and made a circle in the dirt. Meanwhile a few boys hung a COCAP banner from a nearby tree. Once preparations had been made there was only a crowd of ten or fifteen people, not nearly enough to begin the performance. Bijay and Sanjay started making rounds of the market square calling for people to come closer and gather for a performance. While they verbally recruited an audience the other volunteers brought out a drum and started singing and dancing. While the two boys were working hard, it was the singing and dancing that did the trick. Within ten minutes that crowd of ten had swollen to well over 100 people. Once the crowd around the circle was three or four people deep, it was time to begin.

The drama written by the volunteers is essentially a series of scenes that together built an argument for ratifying the Rome Statute. The ICC itself was only briefly mentioned until the very last scene, which more or less was a question and answer session about the International Criminal Court that the audience could listen to and learn about the ICC.

To draw in the crowd and get them interested the first few scenes are pure comedy. A thief tricks a policeman into allowing him free, a renter cheats his landlord out of rent by claiming an earthquake in coming, both scenes were mainly included for a few funny punch lines and chances for some slapstick comedy, but they also start to introduce the idea of impunity for criminals. Next the actors introduce the theme of Nepal’s current uncertain state and political bickering with a funny story about the constant strikes being called throughout the country. They equate the mentality of the strikers to children playing ‘red light green light’ with the entire country and much to the audience’s amusement the strikers turn into children in front of their eyes. While the kids play, the entire country must stop and start its work. In a scene that always got a big laugh the father of the children scolds the children and takes them home from the playground.

This event provides a bridge between the funny scenes and the more serious parts of the play. As the father is taking his child home to tell her mother what she has been doing, a group of armed men burst into his path and abduct him and shoot his family members. During the conflict thousands of young men were ‘disappeared’ in this fashion and so this scene is a reference back to the years of conflict Nepal suffered through. The abrupt change from comedy to drama always evokes a strange reaction form the audience. A few people continue laughing like nothing has changed, several more people also laugh but it is a more nervous uncomfortable laugh than before, most people are simply shocked into silence. This silence is always effective in the timing of the play because after the murders, one volunteer Shanta, plays the child of the murdered mother and abducted Father. She cries and screams for a few minutes after the murders and no matter how many times I watched she was convincing enough to be unnerving.

From there the volunteers show scenes of genocide, dictators abusing their supporters, dictators killing off his opposition and suppressing the press and civil society. All of these scenes have comedic relief laced in to keep the mood from getting too oppressive. The finale is a question and answer session performed by the volunteers that relates everything in the play to the importance of ratifying the Rome Statute. They also ask and answer questions such as “Why do we need the ICC?” “Will the ICC impse on Nepal’s sovereignty?” “Why are our courts not good enough?” etc.

Following the play the volunteers handed out flyers, collected signatures on a petition and answered any questions people had. I ended up watching the performance nine times in four different cities and always found the crowd interested in learning about the ICC by the end of the play. This is quite an accomplishment when you consider who the audience was usually was. In most cases the performance drew a crowd of rickshaw drivers, local shopkeepers and passers-by. These were not the lawyers, officials and professors who you would normally expect to show and interest in a topic like the International Criminal Court. Watching the confidence and courage of the volunteers to dance and perform out on the streets, and watching the real effect their message had on their audience took my already developed appreciation of the COCAP volunteers and pushed it up to the next level. Once again I cannot help but to think that I wish I saw more active and committed youth like these in the U.S… and perhaps also I wish I had been more like them when I was a kid…I guess I have the rest of my mid-twenties to make up for it.