The Indian doll’s house

Thoughts on women in theatre after attending the National Women's Theatre Festival

Today wherever there is a the atre movement in India, women work in every department of theatre production, be it set design, costumes, lights, direction or acting. But till recently, women's presence at a theatre was confined to being seated in the audience, and even then, segregated from the men and perhaps sitting behind screens. Back then the female characters on stage would be males with padding for breasts and pancake makeup to hide greening stubble, and this is still in evidence in many folk theatre forms. But even in the urban milieu, during the colonial period when women were allowed to 'act' on stage, the opportunity was confined to those from red light areas or engaged in entertaining male connoisseurs with their song and dance.

Developments since then notwithstanding, the question of lack of space for women is still relevant. This question came up at the "National Women's Theatre Festival", organised by the well-known Nandikar group in Calcutta (February 2002). To hear the veteran artistes, both from films and theatre, it would seem that the struggle for them to gain respect / vindication / recognition of their existence was as hard as the struggle of the heroes and characters they sometimes portrayed on stage. The patriarchy that bogs down women in the Subcontinent obviously informs the seemingly 'open-minded' form of theatre too.