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CLOSED WORLDS Danger Zones was a space created by Pandies Theatre to explore, question and negotiate

Scripted by Anuradha Marwah, Sanjay Kumar (also the director) and Anand Prakash, “Danger Zones” was a space created by Pandies Theatre to explore, question and negotiate. The teenaged actors and actresses used their powerful voices and dialogues to expound themes of sexuality, gender, child desires and upper-class biases.

The character from Robert Browning’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin” were chosen to develop and illustrate these very themes. Played convincingly by Siddharth Singh, the Pied Piper was taken to give way to the horrific Nithari killings in Noida last year.

Pandies, an activist-theatre group which initiated theatre workshops in Saksham, an informal school in Nithari in May 2006, inevitably grew to address larger questions when the crimes took place.

It looked at the way the upper-classes chose to deal with it in their social gatherings. What was avoidable was the teacher’s rendition of Browning’s poem in her heavy accent, just-for-stage English, played by Isha Manchanda.

The slum children were real in the way they discussed Bollywood, spoke broken English, smoked casually – they were comfortable about their sexual identities.

No doubt, they have been victims of sexual abuse in one way or the other; but for once, instead of looking at children as innocent, desexed , the play looks at them with refreshing perspectives, as individuals with their own desires and thoughts.

Of course, the upper-class society looks at this sexual awareness as a lower-class domain, which brings us to the concept of division of sexuality on ‘moral’ and ‘class’ grounds.

Deepa Mehta’s Radha and Sita in “Fire” come alive in the second script, which looked at alternative sexuality in the light of lesbianism in the slums of Dakshinpuri, Seelampur and Todapur in Delhi. Also taken from workshop experiences, the play follows a couple as they are abused.

“Boys Don’t Cry” scenes take over, but it didn’t take away from the originality and topicality of the play, which is meant to be in a Delhi slum with equally patriarchal, male figures who rape Nafeez.

The play also touched upon briefly, an evocative outlook of right-wing religious fundamentalism, alternative sexuality and inter-religious relationships.

Swapnpriya Manna was commendable both in her portrayal of Nafeez and Anthony. “Danger Zones” was a stimulating look at lines that need to be dissolved and broken.

It was a much-needed venture in the world of theatre that art need not only be for art’s sake – but for society and mindsets too.

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