Love & Reparation

A theatrical response in two parts

Love and Reparation is a theatrical response to a decades-long litigation battle in India that ultimately resulted in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 2018.

Due to the recent Melbourne lockdown we’ve had to postpone the performance, we will advise of new dates for the performance as soon as it is possible for us to do so.

Please register to attend or view online. Given COVID restrictions, a reduced number of tickets are available to attend the performance. And if you are not yet a member of IPCS, please consider joining to support us.

The performances will be followed by a brief Q&A.

Last year marked the 15^th anniversary of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH) at the Melbourne Law School. Our rehearsed reading and book launch is part of IILAH’s Festival of Conversations to mark the occasion. 

Love & Reparation

Part One: Contempt

Over a period of two months in 2012, the Supreme Court of India heard arguments on the constitutionality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court would go on to hold that the law did not violate the Indian Constitution, leaving millions of queer persons vulnerable to state sanctioned persecution. Contempt explores the hearings in the courtroom over that period, while also imagining ways in which the lived narratives of  queer individuals might serve as a form of dissent to the violence of the law.

Part Two: Pride

The year is 2018. At long last, Section 377 is gone, queer Indians should all move on. Except that finding a new story can be harder than it seems, particularly when the law (and life) doesn’t neatly fit into a narrative.  Pride leaps between competing attempts at making sense of the 377 litigation and an individual’s attempts at making sense of love outside the shadow of the law.

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