Women directors of the Indian stage

Women on Top

Nirupama Dutt

The real life stories of Partition, chronicled in Urvashi Butalia's book, `The Other Side of Silence', came alive in the dark backdrop of a black stage in the Sri Ram Centre auditorium on the foggy evening of January 7. These scenes were poignantly enacted in 'Aur Kitne Tukade', a play directed by Kirti Jain. The tickets were sold out well in advance and yet people queued up, hoping to get a seat if someone did not turn up. Similar enthusiasm greeted the staging of Anuradha Kapoor's 'Antigone' and the unfolding of 'Kitchen Katha' by director Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry as late as half-past eight of a cold winter's night.Such was the overwhelming response to nearly all the plays staged in the week-long Purva Asian Women Directors Festival held in Delhi from January 3 to 10, which is to be followed up with a conference on theatre and women. The event - organized by the National School of Drama and Natrang Pratishthan, with support from the Women and Child Department of the Government of India, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and others - marked the coming of age of the woman director in the country.Asked to assess the festival, Amal Allana, an accomplished director with over 40 productions to her credit, says: "The festival, with its vast variety of plays, shows that women have arrived and they have the versatility to see themselves, the world and various issues from different perspectives." Her own play in the festival was 'Sonata', written by Mahesh Elkunchwar. It told the story of brave single women who were a fall-out of the women's movement of the 1970s, with their moments of despair and elation 30 years later.But for a few classics and satirical interventions, the 20 plays that went into the making of this festival centered around the issues facing the contemporary woman as she steps more confidently to tell her stories. A unique thrust of the festival was that it focused on Asian perspectives rather than the global perspective that tends to overlook the realities of developing countries.A remarkable play looking at Asian reality in the global context was 'Panaw' (Journey) from the Philippines. Directed by Cecilia G Ariola, the play uses the talents of several traditional artistes and arts, in telling the story of a Filipino maid who works overseas and is battered by a husband who does not allow her to return home to meet her family for nine years. When she finally returns, she finds out that her kin have either died or have gone away - nobody knows where - and then she starts on her own spiritual journey in her own homeland.When the perspective is Asian, tradition plays a significant role in the creative arts; for these are countries in which tradition is still grappling with modernity. Thus, the theme of tradition in transit became the thrust in many of the plays, giving a complex delineation of the theme and a richness of texture. Devendra Raj Ankur, Director of the National School of Drama, says: "Tradition in transit is a recurring theme in the arts and we have seen the woman writer and artist working on it. But this festival brought into focus the woman director taking up this theme and creating anew."Two directors took up the two Hindu epic dramas of 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata' for re-interpretation. The special focus was on the women in these myths. Tripurari Sharma in 'Mahabharat Se' worked out an experiment of both form and content. She took Shanti, a traditional Pandavani (narration of the Mahabharata through music, acting and story-telling) artiste and Sapna, a contemporary artiste, to weave together the traditional and modern. Says Sharma: "The story of Draupadi is retold by the two artistes and as the drama unfolds leading to war and destruction, the cause and consequence, the right and wrong, grow hazy for Draupadi and Kunti."B Jayashree from Bangalore chose to redeem two much-maligned women characters from the 'Ramayana' - Manthara and Kaikeyi - in her play, 'Manthara', which juxtaposes the folk against the classical. Jayshree says, "Kaikeyi's love and Manthara's uncontrolled desire reveal the extraordinary feminine powers rampant in the world. The denouement of the play questions the nihilistic and narcissitic tendencies in the male of the species."The Malaysian play, 'Maksu', directed by Faridah Marican, took up the story of an ancient traditional dance theatre in the face of the western commercialization. A play from Japan told a woman's story and touched upon the reproductive rights of a woman. The Cambodian play, 'Night Please Go Faster', directed by Nou Sandab, re-visits the history of turbulent politics and the story of women there who, the director says, "are protected and honored by ancient traditions and at the same time victimized by these very traditions".A woman's viewpoint was visible also in Anamika Haksar's 'Baawla', a play based on Dostoevsky's 'The Idiot': a challenge is thrown to the world of power and the play spells hope even in despair. The play takes up the issue of the State versus the individual. Anuradha Kapoor's delineation of the Greek classic, 'Antigone', once again questions tyranny by telling the story of the unyielding Antigone. The contemporary situation can also be addressed with all too well known examples from the past and this is what Haksar and Kapoor have sought to do.Two remarkable plays were Usha Ganguly's 'Rudali' and Nadira Babbar's 'Begum Jaan', which were elevated by fine performances from Ganguly and Babbar. Maya Rao gave a brilliant performance in her 'A Deeper Fried Jam'. Mita Vashisht from Mumbai chose to laugh away all blues in 'Neeti Manakikjaran' and young Shailja from Trivandrum chose theme of the realization of the self in 'Thathri', a play about woman and society."Seven of the women directors are alumni of the NSD and they have done the school proud. But others too have shown their mettle in this festival," says Kirti Jain of Natrang Pratishthan and adds that the tremendous response to the festival may lead to this being an annual or bi-annual event.The festival opened with the honoring of pioneering women directors like Shanta Gandhi, Sheila Bhatia, Vijaya Mehta, Rekha Jain, Joy Michael and Prema Karanth. These veterans, who had the courage to give the shots in times that were completely male-dominated as far as direction went, would indeed be happy to see that isolated efforts have now grown into a full tide.
– Nirupama Dutt

January 19, 2003

Playing the OTHER

Bad girls Good guys

Men make for better woman or so they would have us believe, says Nirupama Dutt in an overview of the female impersonators

When I stepped onto the stage as Rahila in Yahudi ki Ladhki, the audience just wondered how come a girl in this company? This was my first taste of success. I still remember the day. I used to wear a brocade salwar and a jumper. And my hair were done in two long plaits.'' Recalling his girlie days thus is Master Fida Husain Nursee, a century-old veteran of Parsi theatre, now living in Moradabad. He had begun his acting career as a female impersonator with Alfred New Theatre Company.

Although theatre tradition dates back to Sanskrit drama, yet various invasions and colonization destroyed it. Performing arts came to be associated only with `women of ill fame'. Indian cities saw the rebirth of theatre inspired by the West in the 1830s and it became fashionable with the educated strata. Two prominent names of this theatre were legendary stars, Balgandharva of Marathi stage and Jai Shankar Sundri of Gujrati stage. The Sangeet Natak Akademi awards to them in the sixties were for their days as women.

The success of Kamalahasan as Chachi 420 is peanuts before the glory Balgandharva enjoyed in his hey days. He set the fashions in clothes or hairstyles for women at the turn of the century. He appeared in advertisements for women's cosmetics and his singing talents earned him the title of Nightingale of Maharashtra. ``Balgandharva and Sundri set the behaviour mode for the literate urban Indian woman before she came into the open in the freedom struggle as the Bharatiye Nari,'' says Katherine Hensen, a Canadian scholar who is researching the role of the female impersonator in Indian theatre.

``The image he gave to women was a sweet Victorian one: the pativrata who would do anything for her husband. Mothers would say they wanted a daughter-in-law just like the women Balgandharva played. His talent was such that he acted out the image with conviction. A man playing a woman is very challenging for it is a part of the process of translating reality into art,'' says theatre director Amal Allana.

Allana studied the life and times of the legendary actor at length for her plays Himmat Mai and Begum Barve. Manohar Singh played the woman in the former and a man wanting to be a woman in the latter. Begum Barve is a play inspired by the life of Balgandharva. It was a rare performance by Manohar as the Begum. While Balgandharva gave an image to women, Manohar succeeded in shattering this conditioned image of womanhood in a play.

The 20th Century had gone a couple of decades and more before the entry of women started in Parsi theatre. There was a lot of resistance from the directors of theatre companies and the actors. Reasons? Stage was not the place for `respectable' women. In fact an early adventurous girl called Sabz Pari who stepped onto the stage as early as 1870 met with a sad fate. She was abducted the very first night of the show and never heard of again. Hear what old Nursee has to say, ``The entry of girls to our company was very late hence it was considered respectable. Moti lal and Madan Mohan Malviya used to come to watch our performances.''

Though a direct fallout of the colonial era, the proscenium theatre did not follow all the rules of the Victorian theatre. There the `bad' girls were put onto the stage but here they were kept away for long by the goodie-good guys. It also became a means to control women's lives by laying the rules: thus far and no more. Something which commercial cinema carried on even with women as women. It was also a way of denying women their creative space. In arts and crafts, the skills were appropriated by men and women reduced to domestic drudgery.

The daring act by Sabz Pri did not go in vain and slowly women came onto the stage. The first to come were the singing girls. In fact Balgandharva fell in love with one of them. Goharbai became his lady love in real life. Open Sesame and women from `respectable' homes were there in the forbidden arena. Nursee, however said: ``What Balgandharva and Jai Shankar Sundri achieved, no woman has been able to.'' A conviction that comes perhaps from male-to-male dynamics.

AN EXCEPTION

In Maharashtra breathed in the glory of female impersonators, Bengal had already seen the blossoming of an actress in the 19th Century. She was Nati Binodini (1863-1941). The English Press described her as the `prima donna of Bengali theatre' and `the flower of the native stage.' Like most actresses of her time she came from the red light areas of North Calcutta. She was trained by the legendary dramatist Girish Chandra Ghosh from the age of 11.
Binodini rose like a meteor in her career spanning 12 years. Novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterjee acknowledged her genius and it is said theosophist Ramakrishna Paramhamsa went into a trance seeing her performance in Chaitanya Leela. However, exploited and tormented in a male-dominated society, she quit theatre at the age of 24 when she was at the height of fame.

After that she would come to the theatre as a viewer: watching from the wings. Her literary works Amar Katha and Amar Abhinetri Jivan are valuable documents on theatre in Bengal in those days. Theatre director Bapi Bose who directed a play, written by Chitranjan Ghosh, on Binodini's struggle as an actress describes her as `the first martyr of Indian theatre.'