To make you act
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Director Sanjay Kumar speaks about bringing the margins under the spotlight.
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The margins are now centre stage. Pandies theatre recently showcased three plays under the single title "Margins", at New Delhi's Shri Ram Centre. A young troupe of actors with inherent talent and the able guidance of director Sanjay Kumar made characters and issues come alive onstage.
The three plays gave voice and face to the marginalised. Talking before the performance, Sanjay Kumar explained the philosophy of the group. The name Pandies has its roots in 1857. A reference to Mangal Pandey, it was a term of abuse used by the British. "It is stronger than traitor or `ghaddar'." The group chose the name, according to Kumar, "Because we are traitors of our own middle class. We are against hegemonic ideas."
The individual stories had no name because the margins are nameless, reasoned Kumar. The three plays together were of 100 minutes and flowed into each other without break or interval. Explaining this as a "dramaturgical technique", Kumar said, "We didn't make any attempt to connect or disconnect each story."
The profile of a woman with her mouth, ears and nose shut, hung from the top.
It showed how a woman is denied all forms of expression. An exaggerated sketch of two women in an intimate pose and metal installations were also suspended. Speaking eloquently yet rapidly, Kumar explained the sets, "The state as it has evolved is penetrative and destructive, against a woman."
Storyline
The first story dealt with the murder of a young Muslim bride, Anjum. The striking feature of the play was that the bride was an absence. This worked successfully as creating her out of space how she lacked in will. Kumar elaborated that the cast and crew had deliberated on this choice. They decided to make Anjum an absence following the style of documented drama, "Since we are beginning at a post-Anjum stage, that's why there is no Anjum."
The moment when the mother of Anjum, played by Saranga Sharma, throws off her burqa was vivid without being affected. It showed a mother's helplessness yet her defiance. Kumar felt that the gesture was powerful because, "It showed a woman against the state and patriarchy."
The second story questioned whether gender could override caste. Kumar called it, "A re-rendering of archetypal biographies." By raising uncomfortable questions, the audience is made to wonder "Who is right, who is wrong. But the final critique is of the way society has evolved."
The last story was performed in the tradition of a farce. Kumar explained that this story showed, "How narratives of love are essentially constructions of male libido."
Pandies also work extensively with children in slums and settlements. "It is not just street theatre, it is community theatre," Kumar concluded.
NANDINI NAIR
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