The history is not comprehensive; In fact, it has often forgotten to record more than a few notable names along the way. And it is art that is often tasked with balancing many errors.

I was watching a few months ago project darling Directed by Bengaluru-based Sharanya Ramprakash, I was thrilled by her refusal to underline the subject using what little information is available about Khanavali Chenni, an iconic female comedian of the Kannada company theater tradition (1960s-80s). Instead, Ramprakash has framed the play as a collection of the echoes and influences of this powerful artist on the lives of other women in the theater company.

Through fascinating interviews with older female actors, clips of dirty scenes, songs from old Kannada films and clowning around, he and his cast piece together a fully formed man who is as clever, charming and defiant as he is. Appears, even if it does not exist. Same picture except chest X-ray. Ram Prakash’s project darling It’s a wonderful reminder that even the gender of the person telling a story has the power to reshape the world.

a scene from project darling
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In piecing together the script, Ramprakash found that he had to look at his research from a new angle. “When you’re a person without history, you have to do the work of creating a story for yourself,” she says, “because sticking to existing evidence to tell women’s stories is very frustrating.” Eschewing the traditional storytelling techniques of Kannada language theatre, he looked towards German postdramatic theatre, “where drama is not divided into clear beginnings, middles or ends like life” – and used this format as an “alternative To “propose imagination”. Cheney’s life and times.

This fresh and exploratory “consistent theme that emerges” from the second edition of Manam Theater Festival in Hyderabad is gender. They move from “slapstick comedy to physical theater by turning mythology on its head” to bring together “different perspectives and narratives” of gender, sexuality and the body.

change in vision

While making the selection, the festival’s founder-director Harika Vedula watched and read many contemporary Indian theater works. “Recently, there have been so many good options that curating a festival program was challenging,” she says.

Shiva Pathak, co-founder and artistic director of Sandbox Collective, a Bengaluru-based art collective, echoes this conundrum of choice. “There are a lot more people experimenting with ideas and taking risks to try new ways of talking about bodies than there were a decade ago,” she says. In her experience of looking at applications for her annual festival, Gender Bender – now, in its 10th year – she has noticed that these interventions are taking place not only in urban contexts, but also in small towns. “As ideas about gender, sexuality and the body are becoming more integral to art, more spaces and festivals are looking to program these types of projects. Now more women are doing plays about women, so attitudes have also changed,” she says. “If there are no existing stories, scripts are being researched and prepared. And it’s not always a poignant or serious exploration; “Many of them are using humor to make the audience think while laughing.”

Shiv Pathak Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Bengaluru-based theater and film director Kirtan Kumar, who moderated the recently concluded inaugural edition of the KNMA Theater Festival (by the Delhi-based Kiran Nadar Museum of Art), notes another change in contemporary theatre: “The increase in small, experimental, mobile works that can travel”. More agile contemporary theater “challenges intersectional issues by asking different questions of race, gender and sexuality”. Choice project darlingWho is traveling to Manam Theater Festival. While Kumar is excited by this remarkable change in the theater landscape, she cautions that “there is also a danger of something becoming too fashionable and therefore not digging too deeply”. But he doesn’t have a problem with that “because at least the works are getting out there” and reaching audiences; And “that women, trans-women and queer people are enabling this movement, it’s more interesting to them”.

Kirtan Kumar Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“The new, exciting work that is being made in contemporary theater is coming from women, trans-women, and the LGBTQIA+ community, who are really changing the content, format, and form of this practice.”Kirtan KumarTheater and film producer

laughter is stronger than anger

In her practice, Nimmi Raphael, co-artistic director of Adishakti, a Pondicherry-based theater arts laboratory, focuses on marginalized characters from our myths. His plays in theater festival in Hyderabad nidravathavam And -Urmila Complete the life of Kumbhakarna and Urmila Ramayana With care and complexity. “I have a problem with thinking of them as ‘small characters,'” she explains. “Rather, I prefer to think of them as characters who play a major role in my life, and “Also advances the broader story.”

Half in Rafale nidravathavam
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

In -UrmilaLike most good jokes with an edge of truth, Raphael “uses laughter as a method of protest”. “When someone laughs, it becomes one of the most dangerous emotions,” she says. This is the most powerful weapon of political opposition. Urmila laughs a lot for me. She laughs at the things around her, at herself, at her situation. And witnessing someone overcoming their circumstances with humor can give everyone a chance to see the Urmila within themselves.”

a scene from -Urmila
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

sparking conversation

Meanwhile, Mumbai-based Patchworks Ensemble gentlemen’s club The form of drag kings is employed to explore contemporary concepts of masculinity – women posing as men. “As actors, when we get ready with the costumes, wigs and makeup, it becomes a wonderful mask to play with,” explains co-director Pooja Sarup. In her stage persona as the yesteryear Bollywood star, Shammi Kapoor, she displays “his great screen presence, his swag”.

pull the kings of gentlemen’s club
Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Sarup concludes that this ability to tell gendered stories by bringing out forgotten characters or playing with presentation “allows for conversations between families and friends on these seemingly difficult topics.” These presentations can be a good starting point for these conversations.

Manam Theater Festival runs from 15 November to 15 December in Hyderabad.

The author is a Bengaluru-based poet and writer.