20 Women’s Theatre in India: Poile Sengupta’s Mangalam
Dr. Saurabhi Sarmah
Women’s theatre in the Indian context theatre is a rather late development, and yet to receive adequate attention. In the 20th century, we witness a number of plays written by women where they voice their concerns. Despite the obstacles and lack of recognition, women have continued to voice their problems publicly through various forms of writing such as poetry, novel, drama and other forms of literary expression. The plays written by the women playwrights come to be categorised as women’s theatre, giving rise to a different genre that deals with the problems faced by women in society. Also, this particular genre aims to make visible a number of tabooed issues pertaining to women’s life.
One of the important factors that contribute to the emergence of these women playwrights is the re-discovery of women’s theatre history in the West in 1980s. This development mainly triggered by the ideas of feminism inspired the women writers to raise their concerns by means of writing. The women’s liberation movement of 1960s and 1970s had helped in rediscovering the hidden female tradition in the field of theatrical writing as well. Thus, we can say that the ideas of feminism play a major role in the construction of women’s theatre history that digs into the past and brings out the hidden works of the women playwrights. The main motive behind the discovery of women’s theatre history was to create awareness on the fact that women not only face oppression in their everyday life, but also in the domain of historiography where their works remain unrecognised and hidden.
Women’s Theatre and the Indian Context:
According to Tutun Mukherjee, India presents an even more intriguing picture when it comes to women’s theatre and the same concept of marginalization is applicable here as well.
There were many plays written about women and women had been part of the dramatic performances, but their effort remains unrecognised. In the entire history of the development of Sanskrit drama, there was hardly any discussion on a play written and directed by a woman. There had been women performers, dance choreographers but they were not visible till the 19th century. However, a remarkable development in women’s participation in theatre as playwright was seen in the last three decades of the 20th century. Before that, form the late 19th century women playwrights in India started contributing to this genre, although not in a significant way. In 1970s, women’s theatre in India came into prominence when the women playwrights started representing what they actually experience in reality being a part of the marginalised gender category; the issues involving woman and the “woman question” came to be represented in the arena of Indian theatre in a big way.
Defining women’s theatre, Tutun Mukherjee says that it is a politically nuanced theatre oriented towards change and produced by women with feminine concerns. It is a forward looking step trying to break away from reductionism and locates gender identity in the flux of social historical processes. It is a product of feminism and feminine awareness shapes the making of the play. According to Lakshmi Subramanyam, one of the important strands of women’s theatre in India is its intervention in the areas which directly concerns women. This theatre has been used to voice those issues which are largely suppressed or considered as non-existent by the mainstream theatre. Thus, the emergence of women’s theatre can be considered as a challenge to mainstream theatre which is dominated by the male authored plays.
Women’s theatre in India refers to the whole gamut of productions and plays written by women about women, and also characterised by consciousness of women as women. Consciousness raising and through it changing the lot of women seem to be the two major concerns of women’s theatre in India. In India women’s theatre movement seems to go on hand in hand with the street theatre movements organised by organisations like Jana Natya Manch or People’s Theatre Forum. For example, Safdar Hashmi’s street play Aurat (1979) deals with the issues like dowry, wife battering etc. while the women playwrights and practitioners of the same time also try to represent the same issues by critiquing and representing the ongoing acts of violence, starting from the days of Sita and Savitri till today. Many women’s organisations adopt the concept of street theatre to raise awareness on the various issues concerning woman. Thus, we can say that women’s theatre in India is the outcome of their dissatisfaction over the various forms of exploitation faced by women.
The journey of women’s theatre goes on in India witnessing a striking development in the recent times with a number of experienced and young women playwrights representing the concerns in scripts, written both in English and regional languages. Mahasweta Devi, Usha Ganguli, Shanta Gokhale, Dinta Mehta, Poile Sengupta, Bharati Sarabhai, and Manjula Padmanabhan to name a few have written plays raising the concerns of women. In this respect, Tutun Mukherjee’s Staging Resistance: Plays by Women in Translation is a noteworthy collection of plays written by women in India, a supporting document of women’s theatre in India. The anthology contains a number of plays written by women about women. Each of the plays, written in regional languages and later translated into English, deals with the various problems faced by women in Indian society.
Now coming back to the other specific category of women’s theatre in English, we have a very few number of playwrights who have written originally in English and achieved a very limited visibility in comparison to the plays written by the male playwrights. They include playwrights like Poile Sengupta, Manjula Padmanabhan, Dina Mehta and Bharati Sarabhai whose writings focus on the issues relating to women. They seem to uses literature as a means of resisting exploitation by representing as well as critiquing it. Awareness creation followed by social change seem to be major motive behind their scripting of such plays.
Manjula Padmanabhan has contributed to the world of women’s theatre in India by writing a number of plays like Lights Out and Harvest in English. Lights Out deals with the issue of sexual violence against women in India. The play is based on a real incident that took place in Santra Cruz, Mumbai. Lights Out not only represents the presence of violence against women in society but also represent people’s apathy towards the victims. Harvest is another well-known play by Padmanabhan that deals with the issue of organ selling in India which we have already discussed in detail in our fifth. Apart from writing plays, she has also written short stories, novels and monologues, and she is a proficient cartoonist. Hidden Fires (2003) is her another play in the form of a collection of monologues which deals with the various forms of violence and disorder that have engulfed our society. The Sextet is an anthology by her which contains six short plays. The Mating Game is another play written by Padmanabhan.
Like Padmanabhan, Dina Mehta is another women playwright who has contributed to the world of Indian theatre in English by writing socially conscious plays. The plays written by Dina Mehta include: The Myth Makers, Brides are not for Burning, Getting Away with Murder, Tiger Tiger and a Sister Like You. Based in Mumbai, she is also an editor. The Myth Maker is her first full length play representing the Hindi film industry and the early rumblings of communalism in Mumbai. Tiger Tiger is a play by her on Tipu Sultan. Brides are not Burning is a play that represents the presence of dowry system in India and the violent impact of this social system on women. Getting away with murder is another play representing the various forms of violence that women and female children experience in society. The Myth Makers is her first full length play which wins an award in the Sultan Padamsee Playwriting competition in 1968. Sister Like You is play by Dina Mehta on the presence of domestic violence in India. The play had been shortlisted for the British Council New International Playwriting Awards, 1996. Her play When One Plus One Makes Nine deals with the theme of family planning.
Another playwright contributing to this genre is Bharati Sarabhai. She is in fact the first women playwright to write in English. Her two important plays include Well of the People and Two Women. In both the plays sh tries to give a new perspective to the age old beliefs and customs. Well of the People is an idealistic play with a Gandhian tone. The play is about helping the humanity by making water, the life generating force, available to all. The second play Two Women represents a fascinating group of women and their different and contrasting outlook to life.
Poile Sengupta is another well-known Indian playwright who writes about women’s issues in English. Based in Bangalore, she is a playwright, teacher, columnists and children’s writer. She has enriched the world children literature in India through her children’s fiction. Mangalam is Sengupta’s first full length play, dealing with a social theme of violence and abuse experienced by women in Indian society. The play had won The Hindu – Madras Players Play Script Competition Award in 1993. We will discuss this play in detail in this module. Another well-known play by her is Keats was a Tuber which was shortlisted for British Council’s international New Playwriting Prize in 1997. The play represents a group of English teachers in a provincial college and their attitude towards the language and the way they teach it. Here, Sengupta has used both realism and humour to represent the actual scenario pertaining to English language teaching in India.
Thus, it is seen that a few number of playwrights have embraced the English language to write plays in English and they are still struggling to establish themselves in the realm of mainstream theatre practices. The women playwrights writing in English is in a more disadvantageous position than their male counterparts. Primarily because plays written in English is watched by a selected group of people, and second reason is the prevailing gendered perception that women are less capable of producing quality work. Despite the various obstacles faced by women as writers, these playwrights in India have continued their journey of writing plays in English as well as other regional languages like Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Tamil etc. In their writings, they deal with the various real life and supressed experiences of women including their joys, sorrows, oppression, violence and exploitation which they can only feel and write about. As it has already been mentioned that supported by the advent of feminism, the women writers start to be more vocal in terms of sharing their experiences through literary writings. As a result, the 20th century witnesses the emergence of women playwrights in greater numbers. The feminist intervention in the area of women’s theatre history finally fuels the growth of women’s theatre both in the West and India.
More often, the two terms ‘feminist theatre’ and ‘women’s theatre’ are used synonymously. Although the common factor behind the development of the following concepts is the feminist movement of the 1960s, there are underlying differences in them. The concept of feminist theatre is a 19th century phenomenon and characterised by the consciousness of women as women. This theatre is directed towards the destruction of sexual differences and the creation of women characters in the subject position so as to undermine the dominant patriarchal order. It is a theatre that has overt political underpinnings which flourished particularly in US and Britain. However in the Indian context, the term feminist theatre includes plays written by men by about women. For example the plays such as Silence! The Court is Session by Vijay Tendulkar and Nagamandala by Girish Karnad are often defined and considered as feminist plays. Now, coming back to women’s theatre, although it is about consciousness raising by women about women; it is less overtly political unlike feminist theatre in the West. Unlike feminist theatre in India which is a domain of men and women playwrights, women’s theatre is particularly the domain of women that intervenes in the areas which concern women.
Polie Sengupta’s Mangalam
In this module, we will discuss Polie Sengupta’s play Mangalam in detail taking into consideration the problems and exploitation faced by women in Indian society and how they get represented in theatre by women.
Mangalam is a play by a woman about women representing the presence of domestic violence, marital infidelity and the other forms of abuse that women face across ages, cultures and societies. The play was first performed in 1993 by Playpen at Guru Nanak Bhavan, Bangalore. In Mangalam, Sengupta follows the technique of play within a play. The play contains two acts. The characters who discuss the play in Act I become the main characters whom we meet in Act II. Both the acts deal with the same situation so as to blur the distinction between theatre and reality. The situation of the audience is not different from the fictional characters that they watched in the play. For example, Mangalam, the fictional character was a victim of rape in Act I and the viewer was Sumati. But in Act II, Sumati herself turns into a victim of molestation. Thus, the playwright shows the presence of violence against women everywhere irrespective of age, education and economic condition.
The act one revolves around the death of Mangalam – the wife of Dorai and the mother of Usha, Mani, Chitra and Kannan. The play begins with Mani and Revathi arguing over a family issue. Then Thangam enters and the narrative moves forward to reveal many hidden realities pertaining to the lives of the characters.
The setting of Act I is the Dorai household. From Thangam’s conversation with the rest of the family members, the reader gets an idea about the death of someone who is none other than Thangam’s own sister Mangalam. Thangam becomes very irritated as her brother-in-law Dorai does not send her any message about the sudden death of her sister Mangalam. Instead, Dorai spreads a lie saying that as Thangam has heart problem, so they did not inform her about the death of her sister. Thus, the very beginning hints to something fishy about the Dorai household.
Focusing on Mangalam’s death, in Act I, Sengupta brings into notice the various problems that woman encounter in Indian society. For example, Chitra, the daughter of Dorai and Mangalam wants to pursue her study instead of getting married. But Thangam wants her to be married immediately. Because Thangam thinks that education is of no use for a girl, and so Chitra should be married immediately before she herself chooses someone. This is a very common situation in which many young and aspiring poor girls find themselves in own their households which do not allow them to do what they want to do. Ironically, this is a very stereotypical and patriarchal notion on women’s education spread and propagated by none other than a bold woman like Thangam. Sengupta highlights the fact that women suffer not only because of men, but also because of women. Thangam also tries to curb the freedom of Revathy in various ways. For example, in the kitchen, Thangam does not allow Revathy (Mangalam’s daughter-in-law) to do anything according to her choice. Similarly, Mangalam’s daughter Usha is also not free from abuse in her marital life. She has been constantly humiliated and tortured by her in-laws that compel her to come back to her parents.
Towards the end of Act I, the actual reason of Mangalam’s death comes to light. Like Usha, Mangalam was also a victim of violence perpetrated by her husband. It is Revathy who actually reveals the fact that Mangalam kept on taking those sleeping pills and intentionally deteriorated her health, because she was tired of her life after experiencing constant abuse. Dorai kept on giving her children after children in order to take revenge on her. Because Dorai knew that he was not the father of the first child they had. Since Mangalam was silent about as to the actual father of her child, Dorai went on torturing her physically and mentally. He even calls her a prostitute, thus abusing her verbally. Thus, in Mangalam, Sengupta represents the various forms of violence that a woman has to experience without any fault of her. The society neither listens to her voice nor to her silence.
But, why Dorai did not send Mangalam back after knowing the fact that Mangalam was carrying somebody else’ child? When Thangam asks this question to him, his reply reveals his selfish motive:
It is his selfish motive that prevents him from leaving Mangalam. Rather, he subjects her to inhuman torture. Finally a letter found in the grandfather’s trunk reveals that Mangalam was raped before her marriage by none other than her own brother-in-law. He rapes her when Thangam goes out for a temple for a few minutes. With this shocking revelation, the first Act comes to an end.
Act II begins with Suresh and Sumati discussing over the above mentioned story which they watched in the previous day. Thangam also joins their discussion (Here Thangam is a real character and the mother of Sumati and Suresh). In between their discussion, the playwright brings into focus the biased treatment that a girl child faces in Indian households. For example, Sumati reveals that she herself had experienced partial treatment from her mother as compared to her brother Suresh. Thus, the play affirms the fact that such biased upbringing of a female child is still present in Indian society. Like Thangam, we all, be it a man or a woman, have internalised this attitude so badly that it is almost impossible to come out of that mind set of prioritizing the male child. Finally, we end up encouraging the gender bias and the leveraging the process of violence against women.
Even, the stereotypical and traditional notion of women as mere objects of sex has not yet changed. The conversation between Suresh and Sumati bears witness to it. For Suresh, girls are nothing but only objects of sexual pleasure; he does not even bother to hurt the sentiments of the girls with whom he has multiple affairs.
At the centre of Act II, we have Sumati and the multiple abuses she experiences despite being educated and empowered. Not only she suffers negligence in her childhood, but growing up also she faces many such situations that affects her life badly. Sumati goes through the trauma of a broken engagement for resisting the abuse by her fiancé. To the utter surprise of everybody, Sumati becomes a victim of molestation. Her father’s friend Nari tries to molest her on the pretext of visiting their garden. Thus, in Mangalam, Sengupta points to the multiple forms of abuse a woman may experience being a part of this society. Even within the four walls of one’s own family, a woman is not safe.
Similarly, Thangam is also a victim of betrayal in her conjugal relationship with Sreeni who is carrying a secret relationship with another woman. Not only Sreeni betrays his wife Thangam, his friend Nari also does the same to his wife Vaidehi by tying to molest Sumati.
Amidst all these, Radha, the daughter of Nari and Vaidehi is utterly perplexed; she raises an important question: “are all men are same?” In the light of what happens in both the acts, it is much more difficult for a person to answer her question. The majority of the male characters use and abuse their women for their vested interest. However, the only male character who stands in opposition to what the majority does is Vikram. He even goes to the extent of threatening his own father when he tries to molest Suamti. Perhaps, through Vikram, the playwright keeps a ray of hope — that if the society is full of people like Vikram, then its women will be able to lead a fearless life. Sengupta shows that alternative to the stereotypical perception of women as merely object of sex also exists; but very few people possess this perception.
Like Mangalam in Act I, Suamti in Act II suffers a lot. But both adopt different approaches to their sufferings. Although, Sumati is abused, she is strong enough to raise her voice against exploitation and move out of it. But Mangalam very strategically chooses the path of self- destruction instead of fighting back. It is the institution of marriage that makes Mangalam’s life miserable supporting all forms of abuse against women. Even, Usha, Revathy and Thangam in Act I and Vaidehi and Thangam in Act II – they all experience betrayal, abuse and insecurity being into the marriage system. In Mangalam, the playwright seems to question the very basis of this system which hardly provides any security and safety to a woman.
Marriage, family and relationships – everywhere it is the man who takes the upper hand and dominates women. This biased treatment of women has been so rooted in our society that people tend to accept it as normal. The root of the problems faced by women goes back to the patriarchal system which enables men to subjugate women in all social relationships. The same system is also responsible for creating and strengthening the gender divide on the basis of which women are always treated as the neglected other.
In Mangalam, Sengupta shows that there is not much difference between what we see on stage and what we experience in real life. Mangalam is thus a social realist play depicting the plight of women in Indian society. The play can be put into the category of “women’s theatre” as it is a play about women written by a woman playwright. The playwright not only projects the dark picture surrounding the lives of women, but also shows the possible changes that may occur with the help of people like Sumati and Vikram.
For many playwrights like Poile Sengupta, theatre has become a strong platform for expressing their thoughts and concerns, and thereby initiating a process of change in the society’s attitude towards women. The same approach to theatre is also possessed by Mahesh Dattani who thinks that theatre can very well function as an agent for social change. Since it is a composite art involving the playwright, actors, directors and audience, theatre can spread the message more effectively to an audience. It has an immediacy of social and mass appeal than any other forms of literary expression.
The emerging women playwrights find in theatre a space to represent as well as defy the oppressive social norms that affect women. Like Poile Sengupta, Manjula Padmanabhan and Dina Mehta also write about the same issues concerning women and also the exploitation they have to experience both inside and outside the family. In this particular play Mangalam, Sengupta has particularly brought into discussion the system of family which instead of protecting its women makes their life miserable. She has shown that family is the site where various forms of violence are enacted on the female body and finally kept them under cover as family spat. Thus, in Mangalam, she has made an attempt to represent one of the existing social realities that even in the 21st century, they still experience the same acts of violence and abuse which they used to experience in the past. Women’s education and empowerment have not been able to bring any remarkable changes to their life or reduce their exploitation.
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