Pandies Theatre presents "Sarkari Feminism" feminist play at Shri Ram Centre, 4, Safdar Hashmi Marg > 7pm on 29th-31st October 2010

Time : 7:00 pm

Entry : Tickets @ Rs. 200 available at :

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Offline : At the venue.

Place : Shri Ram Center for Performing Arts ( SRCPA ), 4, Safdar Hashmi Marg, Mandi House, New Delhi-110001

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Event Details : Pandies Theatre presents 'Sarkari Feminism'.
Continuing with its twenty year practice of staging feminist plays, plays that do not deal with so called women’s issues but rather see all issues as women’s issues and see a better society – economically, socially and ethically in the empowerment of women, pandies’ theatre brings its latest offering, a new play – Sarkari Feminism.
The play’s analysis of the feminist cause is multi-layered. It works on at least three levels. The first inter-phase is with government policy. How efficacious are the various attempts of the state to intervene in women’s emancipation/ uplift? And how honest are these attempts? How far are these attempts rooted in questionable if not defunct traditions and how much of them is based on empirical studies in the here and now? The questions assume special significance in the light of the spate of pro-women legislation in the preceding decade and the hanging issue of reservation of seats for women in the parliament. Taking an irreverent look at Commissions and Committees appointed by the state to look into women’s problems, the play presents a ribald, humorous take on these attempts. How much has actually been achieved? Have the vast majority of women located in the margins – margins of class, caste, region and sexuality benefited from these, or are they only beneficial for those already empowered?
In a distant but still reflexive mode, the play looks also at the work of middle class centric activism, in this case obviously an activist theatre group. The reflexive mode allows the play to create abundant situational humour as they group proceeds to make a “play” within the play. Is the intervention of independent groups better than that of the state? Are they more capable of surmounting their class biases and better able to understand and address the issues? Are their attempts, smaller in scale and also sporadic and spasmodic never the less better models of amelioration than the vast agendas of the state? Do they question patriarchally rooted social modes that disempower women?
Who has the right to formulate agendas and methodologies about women’s empowerment? Do men have any role here? Can the middle class, economically sufficient woman do so?
Leaning on its incessant work with women in slums and bastis of north India the play presents two stories of trafficking and prostitution, of the treatment of these women when they step out of normative sexual patterns, of exploitation within family, of exploitation within one’s community. Stories that scream out the need for redress on their own terms.
Going beyond its attempts at interactive theatre and moving more into Confrontationist Theatre, the play confronts its audience and by implicating among the reasons for victimisation of women seeks to involve it in a process of seeking a more enabling role for itself.

Written by : Anuradha Marwah

Directed by : Sanjay Kumar

Related Events : Theatre | Women