New year, and a new book review

'Annie Zaidi’s The Comeback is about one man’s journey from self-absorption to consideration for others staged as an ode to theatre as an artform. It asks important questions of popularity, selfishness, stoicism and leadership, about life on social media, and about working in cinema, TV and OTT — all of which represent contemporary India. Also thrown in is a bit of the magic of small towns and possible models for theatre to thrive there.'

             - Akankshya Abismruta in the Hindustan Times

Link: HT review of The Comeback

Some rollicking late summer fun

I reviewed a new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is still as much fun as it was four hundred years ago. It speaks to the power and longevity of a good script.

Link to the review: https://readdurhamenglish.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/rollicking-review-of-a-midsummer-nights-dream-by-elysium-theatre-company/

A staging, at last

It has taken thirteen years but, finally, my play 'Name, Place, Animal, Thing' got staged. The Bay Area Drama Company produced it and Rita Bhatia directed the shows ran at Sunnyvale Theatre recently.

This script was shortlisted for The Hindu Playwrights prize in 2009, but was not staged at the time, partly because I was a freelance journalist who had very little contact with theatre makers. A couple of wonderful readings happened during the pandemic (Atri Bannerjee directed a dramatized reading for the Almeida Theatre in the UK and the Panas Panas Theatre in Kuala Lumpur did a Zoom reading) but this is the first time the play has been staged with costumes, props et al. 

I am glad that the artistic director, Basab Pradhan reached out and made this happen. I couldn't be there to watch the show but many others, especially the South Asian community in the Bay Area, did come to watch. This matters a great deal to me since the play focuses on the intersection of domestic work, class and gender as it plays out in South Asia. 

I was asked to write a blog post too, to help audiences engage deeper with the themes of the play. I wrote at some length so that readers may have a bit of historic perspective viz domestic work and child labour in independent India. Here's something to chew on: 

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, was applicable to 64 professions that were deemed hazardous; domestic work was not included. Activists lobbied the Indian government to change the law so that children under the age of 14 could no longer be employed as domestic workers. Initially, the notification was restricted to government servants, who comprise a negligible percentage of the population. Still, the government did concede that children should not be employed in households. The work can be never-ending (a domestic worker can be woken up in the middle of the night to perform a chore) and the risks of exploitation are high since constant oversight is not possible.

In 2006, the government of India finally expanded this order into a law so that children under 14 are no longer permitted to undertake domestic work. However, there are an estimated 150 million child labourers between the ages of 5 and 14, of which at least 7.4 million are domestic workers. More recent studies suggest that 74 percent of child domestic workers in India are between the ages of 12 and 16. Clearly, implementation of the law is weak. Besides, the law only applies to children under 14. What happens to the 15-year-old who lives and works in someone else’s house?

One of the activists I'd met in 2006 told me that if the law were properly implemented, employers are afraid they will be “orphaned for the lack of a slave”.

You can go read the full post here: 

https://www.bayareadrama.company/journal/2022/5/17/on-writing-name-place-animal-thing

The script is included in a set of three published in book form as well and you may buy it  online or, ideally, in any bookstore that stocks it. A Kindle version is also available here: 

https://www.amazon.in/Three-Plays-Untitled-Place-Animal/dp/8193850572

A play read, at last

 When I first began work on my own, as a freelance writer, I had decided to give myself permission to write in any genre, form or style without thinking of whether it would lead to an income, or even a publishing contract or a performance. 

Not having a daily job, being free of the compulsions of form and word restrictions, I was also finally free to really think about all the things that I'd gathered over eight years of being a journalist and an observer of society. I had done some stories around children who worked as domestic workers, and while many were ill-treated and had to be rescued by social organisations, I had also observed many children growing up as employees in middle class families and not being "abused" (I use the quote marks with some deliberation, to suggest the ambiguity of familiar behaviour). Some of these kids were sent to school, or at least, were given the option of studying, usually at a government school or a cheap, private school. They ate what their employers ate, most of the time, and some of them even had a room with a modicum of privacy. Some were scolded or hit, or prevented from going out without permission, but in many Indian families, parents tended to treat their own children in similar ways. 

Those who grew up within a household of which they are a part, face a quandary. If they were good students, they might seek their employer's help to go to college, or they might want to marry and settle into families of their own making. However, their choices would be restricted by whatever ideas their employers had about deserved freedoms. In large cities, space is at a premium. Where would a young domestic worker go if she wanted to date someone? Could she afford to marry for love and/or to quit her job? 

On the other hand, where would a middle-class girl go if her parents disapproved of her lover? Apart from having a better education and a chance to find a well-paying job, is a daughter's situation so different from that of a domestic worker? Who is allowed to make mistakes, and what does nomenclature have to do with self-image?

Questions like these had been revolving around in my head for a few years and they led me to write a play, Name, Place, Animal Thing. The script was shortlisted for The Hindu playwrights' prize, and that gave me the confidence to keep writing plays. This particular script was never staged or professionally read, though. Now, nearly 11 years later, it has been read (and read very well!) at the Almeeda Theatre in the UK. 

A recording of the reading is up on YouTube, and is free to watch for a few days. Please click on the link below to watch. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eX4Pjd9mFY

Update: 

I noticed months later that Maryam Philpott had written about this performance. Here's an extract from what she writes, and a link below:

"When men appear in this fascinating story, they create lane-changing momentum in the pace and direction of the play and Nancy’s life. Her severe Uncle Malik represents the established social order, the old world that seeks to confine Nancy within a religious and political structure that sees marriage as the ultimate outcome for a woman. Malik’s personality and belief in his absolute righteousness defines the play, motoring the action that, prior to and during this story, shape his family so completely – especially the haunting presence of his daughter lost shortly before Nancy took the same treacherous path.

But other men provide direction as well, not least Nancy’s ineffectual rubbish collector husband who appears more than once to demand the return of his wife as property and to plead his cause, while a clothing salesman’s alluring patter charms the homely women of the play in a variety of ways. What is clear is that none of these men have the best interests of the womenfolk in mind and, young or old, these men prioritise their own happiness and sense of propriety such as it is with fateful effects."

The full article here:

https://maryamphilpottblog.wordpress.com/tag/name-place-animal-thing/