Editorial»
Identity and the theatre of idioms
JAN 13 - Working in the theatre department, and carrying out research on women’s representation in theatre, most of my time has been spent on reading plays, mainly by women of the twentieth century. Most of these plays have been about women and their struggle, their search for a coherent identity and most recently their plays reflect their anger at the bondage of outgrown stereotypes. Of the several plays I have read some are experimental and others are traditional and well-made plays. But all these plays though written by women and with women at the centre are not all plays with feminist viewpoints, neither do they all provide a positive assessment of women. But nonetheless they reflect the physical and psychological dimensions of women, and their struggle towards human definition and freedom. “Womanwords and images are unleashed with the fury of tongues, tipped with lightening.”
Thus as I treaded this path filled with fascinating western plays, sadly I realised Nepal could not boast of such plays written by women, though we can proudly talk of several masterpieces written by male playwrights, with roles given to women with their scenes set in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, the world of segregated females who, if they are allowed into the men’s world, would be treated very badly. But I consoled myself, thinking along Virginia Woolf’s lines, “masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common” and women’s creative problem has always been “that they have had no tradition behind them, or one so short and partial that it was of little help. For we think back through our mothers if we are women. It is useless to go to the great men writers for help, however much one may go to them for pleasure.”
It therefore occurred to me to write a play, a short one, not to be published perhaps, but to be performed or read out among the students here and the teachers. During my interview for the Fulbright Scholarship the Director of the American Centre had asked me, “Are you going to write a play as well?” “No, I don’t think so.” That had been my answer to her. But here things caught up with me. I got pushed along into working with theatre persons all around me, giving answers to questions that I had never thought of before.
In Nepal writing a play has forever been a male prerogative, with most of the roles in play castes being male, to which until recently any aspiring actress can vouch for. Thus I embarked upon this project of writing a play—by attempting to capture the main thrust of the life and the dynamics of the change and the pains, joys, trials and tribulations of a woman associated with the encounters of cultures, and womanhood. The fictional story is of a particular type of modern woman in her late thirties, who lives with her family in Kathmandu: the intellectual who is forced to make ideological and personal compromises in a world which demands them. In the eyes of the world she is charming, self-sufficient and enterprising but she knows that survival in a fragmenting world is an effort.
On 26th December I attended the Fourth South Asian Literary Conference in San Diego and made a presentation, “Lakshman Rekha: Across Textual Boundaries.” Again I worked my way through, citing Nepali plays written by male playwrights. Again the question cropped up, what about women playwrights? Haven’t women used the theatre as a stage to create new women?
Not yet! It was a South Asian Conference and once again I found as in other such conferences I attended while here, that South Asia was represented extensively by Indian scholars studying and working in various Universities in America and Canada. Of the fifty two papers presented on 26th and 27th of December, about half of them were on untouchables, domestic workers and women’s rights. The other half was on plays, fictions and non-fictions written by Indian writers, both male and female, in India or those living abroad.
It was a very satisfying conference in terms of the presentations, but to see only Indians representing the South Asian forum (there were about 5/6 American professors) was not all that heartening. But I came away again having talked about Nepali plays written by male playwrights. Since I was the only “outsider” in the otherwise exclusive Indian community of scholars, they barraged me with questions. Not because they knew anything about Nepal but because they were curious to know, to learn something about us. And I noticed that it was not only a scholarly exercise writing and discussing works produced by your own country people, but it was I realised a pleasurable job as well to be able to discuss works of your own people, at your will, at your choice.
This conference once again goaded me on to brush up the play I had written. One of these days the students of Pomona College will be reading the translations of Nepali plays I have committed myself to, and my own little play. What I wish to see is the expression on the faces, of students and faculty, as they stage-read Gopal Rimal’s Masan, or Balakrishna Sama’s Swasnimanchhe or my own little play. How much of it would they understand when stage reading Masan, the colonisation of the woman’s body, and the perpetual state of women’s exploitation? How much would they recognise the cultural boundaries and Lakshman Rekhas drawn for women by the Nepalis society? But nonetheless the exploration of the psychological consciousness of women is a universal dimension which I am sure will capture their attention if not appeal to them.
So my efforts, I realised, would be to look for identity. First, the identity question as I experienced at San Diego conference was regional and the next one was related to female identity. When you look at women in general to find your own identity, you tend to create a protagonist who represents your anxieties. I created in my small play therefore a protagonist, a woman who is caught between the two pulls of the times that are in a state of flux. Was this woman my double? Well, I would say it is a fictional character. But what about the ambience that she finds herself in with a lesbian daughter, a modern son and an indifferent well-off husband? The denouement comes with her realisation that she would need more of the same elements for her fulfillment that are responsible for her problems in existence, too.
Finally, I would like to put all my experiences together and say that theatre or play is the most productive genre for expressing identity questions, especially those of the women. I have grown to like the new idioms of theatre and the theatre of the idioms. My protagonist, who will be read by some people or possibly seen, is caught between these idioms and I accept that as the drama of a woman’s identity in Nepali society today.Posted on: 2004-01-13 02:17
Headlines
Advertisements
