The play itself, with themes like arranged marriage and the clash of tradition with modernity, drew mixed reviews. It was advertised as a black comedy, but The Birmingham Evening Mail said that "what begins as a sharp and black look at a modern family dilemma sinks beneath its own weight." By contrast, The Birmingham Post called the play -- Bhatti's second after a 2001 work, "Behsharam" ("Shameless") -- "gripping and essential."
Whatever the faults and merits, though, they were lost in a debate that made headlines in British newspapers and on radio and television shows, and raised profound concerns about the consequences of, as some saw it, caving in to violence.
In the future, "theaters will not want to take the risk" of staging provocative works, Foster of the Birmingham Stage Company said. "It doesn't just affect theater. What about controversial books, art galleries, paintings?"
(Braham Murray, an artistic director of the Royal Exchange Theater in Manchester, which has commissioned a new play from Bhatti, said there would be "no prescription" about the theme of the play and "no doubts about staging it provided the play is a good play").
But many Sikh representatives argue that the issues have been misunderstood. Harmander Singh, a spokesman for the advocacy group Sikhs in England, said concerns about the setting of the play had gone unheeded for days before the violent protests. Sikh representatives had suggested that the play would be far less offensive if the setting were changed from a temple to a community center, a proposal the theater rejected.
"Rape and other things happen everywhere," Singh said in a telephone interview. "We know that is a reality."
The fact that Bhatti's play took place in a temple was at the center of Sikh objections. "It's nothing to do with the contents; it's the context," he said. "We are not against freedom of speech, but there's no right to offend."
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