Gender, another tool to marginalise people as race, religion and caste are, has long been one of theatre’s chosen topic.
At the International Theatre Festival of Kerala on Tuesday, gender took centre stage as plays such as Notes on Chai, Akshayambaram, and Uratti, all of which had women as central characters, were discussed at a ‘Meet the artist’ programme.
Patriarchy explored
Directors of these three plays —Jyoti Dogra, Sharanya Ramprakash and Manoj Kana — explored the idea of restructuring the existing patriarchal attitude towards women by men in everyday life. Notes on Chai was an attempt to depict the non-dramatic side of the daily life of women, says Jyoti Dogra.
The drama explores the facelessness that women bear when they are confined to the four walls of the house. Women suffer sexist comments from society in everyday life; it was indeed an inevitability to reveal these issues to audience through theatre, she says.
Time to time, women are subjugated from mainstream art forms, says Sharanya Ramprakash.
Her play Akshayambaram depicted the patriarchal attitude of men towards women.
The play is about the block that a female artist encounters when she enters the male-dominated art scene of Yakshagaana.
Sharanya added that she was inspired to work on the play when she faced rejection as a Yakshagana artist. She notes plays which tell stories from the perspective of women are less and this play tries to fill the gap.
Manoj Kana, director of Uratti, says the ones who want to change the life of the marginalised often neglect the grass-root level issues.
“The people who acted in the play suffered from the hard realities of lack of basic necessities such as good food and proper shelter. Even though governments have been changing, the issues of the marginalised remains the same.”
Uratti, which means wife, depicts the story of Adivasi women who are oppressed within the marginalised.
