By Roland
Schimmelpfennig
Presented by Zuleikha Chaudhari and Performers at Work
Presented by Zuleikha Chaudhari and Performers at Work
Direction and Design: Zuleikha Chaudhari : Translation: Rajesh Tailang
physical preparation and Instruction - Rashid Ansari 
Cast: Manish Choudhari,
Mandakini Goswami, Jitender Kumar, Supriya Shukla, Sujith Shankar.
physical preparation and Instruction - Rashid Ansari Cast: Manish Choudhari,
Mandakini Goswami, Jitender Kumar, Supriya Shukla, Sujith Shankar.
Venue KHOJ
Studios
Funders:
KHOJ International artists Association, Max Muller/ Bhavan
One of the most significant questions
that come up when open tries to develop a critique for Zuleikha’s rendition of
Arabian Nights by Roland Schimmelpfennig is to be able to locate the play in
the programming structure of KHOJ. The last one-year has seen KHOJ concentrating
and giving a lot of attention to Performance Art. KHOJ being an organization,
which has its roots in experimental practices within fine Arts, one can
contextulize its engagements with Performance art, as the discourse around
performance has always claimed its origins from practices emerging from the
avant-garde within visual arts. However, over the years KHOJ has very carefully
chosen not to program around a generalized notion of Art, consciously choosing
to program around practices in visual arts, considering it to be a much needed
focus in its quest to challenge boundaries. Institutions and individuals,
positioning themselves on the margins, often realize that ‘the edge’ often is
an un-definable space and margins, and working with inter-cross disciplinary
practices often lead the individual/institutions to cross disciplines in their
own practices too.
When one sees a staging of an
experimentavite play at the premises of KHOJ, one begins to question whether
the agenda to explore boundaries from within the confines of visual arts has
been expanded to include and support various ‘cutting edge practices’ across
boundaries within the larger realm of artistic practice. However, Zuleikha
Chaudhari renders the play more in the manner of an installation using the cast
and set to transcend the descriptive category of theater. Therefore at the end
of it one sees a theater artist, working in (essentially a ) visual arts space
and both complimenting each other...helping each to transcend disciplinary
frontiers.
The play as such (Performed on the 21 –
23 April, 2006) was an adaptation of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Nights, a
heavily loaded text greatly influensed by European readings of the oriental
heat and sensuality, though Zuleikha’s rendition of the play subtantially
subverts the Orientalist bias. The format of the
script is centered on constructs of ‘laid down and available oriental woman’
who is there to be obtained by the ‘active mail’, provided the ‘HE’ goes
through his assigned journeys, and encounters with ‘fantasy fate’.
The narrative revolves around five characters (two women, three
men), a high-rise apartment building and the male gaze. Heat, water and brandy
are the recurring motifs in this play about mystery, lust, love, agony, ecstasy
and hallucinatory visions. However what really arrested me throughout my many
viewings of Arabian Nights, is how the core narrative
centers around an ancient story telling tradition about harems, jealousy,
revenge, curse and redemption; yet attempts to contextualize it in a
contemporary urban setting...not letting go of the ‘oriental fantasy’ that
informs and inspires its root narrative.
What also intruged me is when the essentially ‘male’ script is used
and appropriated by a ‘female’ director how she handles the male gaze and sexualization of the female
body. Zuleikha does a brilliant job in
subverting the male gaze without changing the script...but by using entirely
formal devices. The gaze is still a motif of sexual desire but is stripped off
its sensuality. However, am still not able to pinpoint at what point does the
subversion of the gaze happen...does Zuleikha ride on the element of ‘torture’
that the script in-builds and formally exaggerates it in a manner that
disallows it to settle in, and combines other formal devices? or is it through
a different take all-together? The voyeurism is subverted within the narrative
by the manner in which adultery is punished...without any empathy to whether it
is intentional or not...perceived or real...in this play breaking sexual
barriers lead to death.
Certain uses of formal devices stand out in the play.... first thing
that struck me that there was very little acting in the traditional sense of
it. The play is more choreographed than directed (in the manner theater defines
direction). The play begins with a sanitized all white setting.... and
gradually unfolds into the white being disturbed by the grime and sand, which
the actors pick up in the course of the performance. This parallels the loss of
sanity and the increase in the ‘muck’ that unfolds in the lives of the
characters.
Like all Zuleikha’s plays... this work is hyper pitched and seeks to
maintain a (nearly) one and a half hour crescendo. The result is there is very
little room for modulations, resulting in the ‘high’ tending to ‘plateau’ and
become an extended flat. This necessarily put a lot of onus of modulation on
the acting...requiring them to be high energy throughout...but still be very
careful about how they pitch. As it is as an actor it must have been very
difficult to employ the traditional modes of maintaining cues as Zuleikha
consciously broke the ‘traditional’ links between actions and words...having
the audience sitting so close to them. One must admit they did a brilliant job.
