A one-of-a-kind female solo act aims to respond to patriarchy through a body performance
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The origin of unseen, a performance piece by actress Kalyanee Mulay, directed by Vishnupad Barwe, can be traced to 1891, when a letter written by Rabindranath Tagore was published in the Bharati Periodical. It was a response to Pandita Ramabai’s speech where she said that women can do anything men can, except drinking alcohol. In his letter at that time, Tagore, who was 30 years old then, had sounded critical about women’s rights. However, in his later years, he went on to become one of the strongest voices in the movement towards women’s emancipation. Mulay and her team stumbled upon that letter in 2012, during their research on Tagore’s work, on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary. Reading the letter churned thoughts in Mulay that needed a creative outlet of some sort.
Recalling the genesis of the piece, the 28-year-old actress says, “Reading that letter did something to me, almost at the physical level. And it made me wonder if the world around us in general still thinks like the young Tagore. His sister Swarupkumar Devi had said after reading the letter, that she would disown him.” It was her director Vishnupad Barve who had found the letter and along with Mulay, who he knew from Delhi’s National School of Drama where they both graduated from, he made unSEEN. It’s a 55-minute long, solo, devised performance, divided into eight parts. It begins with a reading of Tagore’s letter to warm up the audience to the context. And then it meanders into a performance depicting the reality of being a woman in a patriarchal world. “I don’t know what to call it though — choreography or performance arts. It’s definitely not a dance performance. I think it’s best described as theatre-meets-performance arts,” Mulay says. The setting is made of kitchen utensil installations. She clarifies that the woman in the piece is neither the victim nor the rebel. “Places in the house are assigned to certain members. It’s about the mundaneness of it and how one responds to the mundaneness and relates to it. This is not a rebellion, just a woman responding to reality,” Mulay says.
The audience will witness her engaged in a range of activities, right from shaving her legs to doing a fantasy ramp walk. “And all objects you see in the play, are real. Including a jar of gomutra, where the audience can even smell it. It’s a sensory experience, overall,” she says.
Interestingly, the house lights remain on, on the audience throughout. “That makes it a dialogue of sorts. I can watch them watch me and I feed from their gaze. We will be performing in Mumbai for the first time, and honestly, I don’t know how they’ll react to it. But we have put in a lot of heart into it. The idea is to see what emotional zone the play creates,” Mulay signs off.
Where: The Drama School, Mumbai, Girgaum, Charni Road
When: January 28, 7 - 9 pm
Entry: Rs 200
Call: 9619336336
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