Indian Theatre and Incarceration: Performing the Transition from Criminal to Civic Space

This article investigates the impact of arts-based therapies on incarcerated individuals within the Presidency Correctional Home in Kolkata with specific reference to Alokananda Roy's project 'Culture Therapy'. This programme for the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals through the arts is arguably the first of its kind in the Indian context. By employing personal observations, non-structured interviews and performance reviews, this article provides a close reading of Roy's experimental methodologies and highlights how public performances involving prisoners help to humanise participants and deconstruct mutually exclusive notions of civic and criminal spaces.