The jolly looking fellow is the Messenger of Death

 

 

 

on the set of Maniben.com with Smriti

Shibani, offered to take Gail Nyoka of Toronto and me around Mumbai. After we checked out the aptly named FabIndia and Ghandi's cooperative, Khadi, with its beautiful hand woven silks and cottons and wonderfully smelling skin products-all for the benefit of the villagers who make the products- we drove very far north (in the 1600's Mumbai was a string of islands that have since been consolidated with land fills and bridges) where all the Bollywood and TV studios are. Shibani's daughter, Smriti Irani, is one of Indian TV's top stars, though we didn't learn this until after we had visited her on the set. They were shooting her current serial, Maniben.com, when we arrived- a family comedy about a village woman who comes to the city but tries to keep her traditional ways. The show was adapted from a play that Smriti starred in. Before this, Smriti was a hit in her previous serial that was especially popular in Afghanistan, so popular in fact that one night while an Afghan family was glued to the set, they were robbed and the thieves wrote in big letters on the walls around the house, THANK YOU, SMRITI!" When Smriti is done shooting she heads to the theater where's she's appearing in a new play that she has also produced.

Performers from MAHARASHTRA

 

 

 

 

Jeannie Haughton and cast; Vanisa Adams Haris in Who Will Sing For Lena?

 

 

plays plays plays

More than 60 international plays were presented over the week with ten readings a day so it was difficult to choose. Here's a very small sample: Salute the Man by Jeannie Haughton of Melbourne, takes place during the early settlement of Austrailia. The alleged disappearance of a white woman causes the settlers to murder many aboriginals in their search for the missing woman. Finally found, "she" is discovered to be the prow of a ship that has crashed on the rocks! Who Will Sing For Lena? by Janice Liddel of the US is about the first woman executed for murder, an African American woman who has killed her abuser in self-defense terrifically acted by Vanisa Adams Haris, also of US. Another play was about a white woman scape-goated in Rwanda. Many plays were about race and ethnicity. There was a play about Indian prostitutes and transvestites written and acted by the prostitutes themselves- they have formed their own theater company!

Unlike most of the internationals, I stayed in a guest house on campus and across the hall from me occupying thee same size room that I had to myself, were 10 members of a traditional folk group from Maharashtra who were there to perform the ten incarnations of Krishna-it's hard for me to keep all the Indian gods straight but I think Krishna is also Shiva.

Ripali, Niru, and Nilam

 

Ripali, Niru, Ripali and Ameera

 

 

 

CHILDREN OF THE FAR FAR AWAY

Children of the Far Far Away is about an American woman who travels to Micronesia to look for babies for an adoption agency. The US has a compact with Micronesia that allows for US military bases and bomb testing- remember Reagan's Star Wars. In exchange, Micronesians get a little money that wipes out their subsistence life-style and are free to travel to the US without a passport. This is the attraction for adoption agencies. It means an end run around the INS. My mentor when I wrote it, called it "Frontline" on stage. It's debut was in the Solo Mio Festival in San Francisco.

The conference asked me to stage "Children" in Mumbai. The cast is a mix of international delegates and University of Mumbai Theater students. One morning I'm walking outside the University when this young pistol of a girl approaches me, just being friendly I think to a stranger. When I get back, there she is, Ripali, with the other theater students, and I instantly cast her as the pregnant Lina. Niru didn't have to work hard to portray the seductive taxi driver. Indian-American actor/playwright Ameera as Kada, the adoption worker, says after he comes on to her: "That smile . . I almost say yes. " She looks at Niru and his drop dead gorgeous smile lights up the room; the 5th wall is broken, everyone in the audience is seduced.

Nilam wears a white sari as beleagured Dr. Rita- "four Caesarians in one day and we dont have water for days."

In the discussion that follows, an Indian woman denounces the play for presenting Lina as a victim. My Indian friend, Shibani whispers to me, "You always know it's good when someone in the audience gets angry." Shibani asks if she can translate the play into Hindi.

 

 

 

 

Women Playwrights International

When I told people at my university where I was going there was not much interest- women? playwrights? who cares. There were 80 women delegates from countries around the world and about 200 Indian women. Many of them were playwrights in addition to being attorneys and scientists. Probably everyone was an activist, some more than others. These women are playwrights and theater people so they can have a VOICE. Ever since I've been in Kabul I've been trying to promote theater as befits my title of Professor of English and Drama which is mostly meaningless but I still take it very seriously. Theater is even a great way to learn English - you get to use your whole body and not just language to express the idiom.

Every evening at the conference there were performances by groups from throughout Inda. One of the most brilliantly exquisite was by an Indian 'ballet' troupe from Hyderbad. The beautiful young girl in the photos is the youngest member. Her grandmother, Vasanth Kannabiran, a pioneer in the Indian women's rights movement and nominated in 2005 for the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize, wrote the play, Menaka, that forms the context for the dance.

VEER

VEER which means Brave, takes place in the 1750's, (hence the Scarlett OHara gowns); it stars hottie Salman Khan-I only learned this was the guy strutting back and forth, the seams on his jacket about to burst every time he moved a mega muscle -after the fact when every Indian woman of any age almost fainted when I told her- I didn't get a photo of him but he offered Rosemary and I tea around 2 AM when we probably looked like we were about to pass out having already been on the set for 9 hrs.

The Gate of India next to the Taj Majal Hotel; the caves on Elephant Island; Make-Up, and Rosemary and me aka Harriet and Jane on the set of VEER

 

 

 

 

Mumbai for reaL

So hard to get back in the blog saddle after being gone soooo long –it’s been a rough last month and I don’t mean the T. Mumbai was wonderfully rejuvenating-(I went to an ayervedic doc who said I was so full of toxic stress a weaker person would have had a nervous breakdown). Here’s a link for those of you who haven’t seen my debut in Mumbai’s daily news-quite a few misquotes but good photo-

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_kabul-calling_1309355

The day after I arrived, a few of us went to see Elephant Island full of caves with statuary and reliefs of Shiva and all the Hindu deities; on the dock where we got the ferry (sublime to be on the ocean after all this landlocked time), a man asked if we’d like to be extras in a Bollywood flick