Inviting you! 2 events, 4 short plays (ONLINE)
My plays produced by EnActe Arts
tl;dr: This post is to invite you to TWO short ONLINE theatrical events (less than an hour each) where four short plays that I wrote recently are being launched by EnActe Arts.
I have been developing this work as playwright-in-residence for EnActe Arts as part of their WEFT (women enact for themselves) program. I am the first writer-creator in this program, and I could not be more grateful for EnActe Arts’ unstinting support in helping me develop and for producing this work.
All online. Tickets are “pay what you can”. Please come.
EVENT 1:
Sat April 10th, 5pm PST. Online. Length: 55 minutes.
ART OF THE POSSIBLE (play) and BOLLYWOOD RULES…for Women (rap song).
EVENT 2:
Sat April 17th, 5pm PST. Online. Length: 45 minutes.
For more detail on this work and why I chose to write what I wrote, please read on….
1. Art of the Possible - 3-act play, 35 mins
A somewhat humorous look at a situation where a young woman decides she can no longer sustain a marriage with her “perfect” husband and worse she cannot come up with a “good” enough reason why. What is she to do?
Written by Reena Kapoor Directed by Vinita Sud Belani
Creative Designer Raashina Humayun Composer/Sound Designer Aalap Desai
Edited by Uma Sakhalkar, Grégoire J. Martineau
Starring: Anita Rathnam, Shubhangi Kuchibhotla, Anusuya Rao, Sreejith Nair, Rohit Bhagat
2. Bollywood Rules…for Women - RAP song, 5 mins
A rap song about the double standards for women that Bollywood films have long embraced. I do not wholly blame Bollywood; in my view it reflects and yes, perhaps amplifies, what we hold dear. But we can protest, and powerfully mock it and hopefully as a result diminish its focus and amplification.
Written by Reena Kapoor Music composed by Siddharth Chattopadhyay
Directed by Suman Chandra Choreographed by Suruchi Chandorkar
Cinematographer Alan Cash Editor PK
Vocals: Reena Kapoor, Debjani Roy Chattopadhyay
Starring: Reena Kapoor, Suruchi Chandorkar, Raashina Humayun, Prerana Vaidya, Roshni Datta, Anju Prakash, Namita Vakil, Annapurna Chandra, Tannistha Mukherjee, Shirin R. Hasan, Aditi Honawar, Atika Shah, Smita Garg.
3. Oasis - a play in letters, 10 mins
This is an epistolary (literary work in the form of letters) where a young girl grows up into a teenager, eventually into an adult, and through her letters to her estranged father we follow her discovery of what is family and her emergence into womanhood.
Written by Reena Kapoor Directed by Vineet Gupta
Edited by Grégoire J. Martineau Production Manager Dan Holland
Starring: Zoya Khare, Inika Mukherjee, Emielyn Das, Amytza Maskati
4. Burned - monologue, 7 mins
BURNED is perhaps my most tragic piece and it is a monologue from a woman who is the victim of an acid attack.
Written by Reena Kapoor Directed by Vandana Prabhu
Edited by Grégoire J. Martineau Production Manager Dan Holland
Starring Yeshaswini Channaiah
Feminist themes but…
I was born and raised in mostly urban India. And while I have been gone from India for over 30 years, growing up there in the 70s and 80s was formative. It is a culture, a way of life, a social metaphysics that is not easily erased. Ironically while India, especially in the metros, has changed and moved on, the Indian diaspora I have encountered here continues to reenact much of what I had hoped was left behind. In fact in some ways the diaspora holds on even tighter to all that is Indian - good, bad and ugly.
...in the Indian Tradition
My stories are informed by what I saw, and grew up with, in my own extended family and among friends even in social circles that professed modernity. And it is informed by my surprise - often disappointment - at the rigid and less desirable attitudes that the Indian diaspora continues to abide by here. Women expected to occupy - and often submitting to - prescribed roles, dictated by stricture and double standards that deserve to be rejected; and women repeatedly asked to sublimate their own desires and self respect in service of meaningless tradition.
Voice — not victimhood
In all of my work I am committed to a narrative of agency. My character is a woman of Indian origin who finds herself in a situation that was visited upon her and in which she suffers. But she doesn't succumb to a narrative of victimhood, and instead reclaims her voice and life. Her saviour is not out there but within. She suffers -- and yet SHE rises!
I hope to see you there on both Saturdays!