After three successful shows in Bengaluru, five-month-old theatre group Red Polka Productions, in association with Lahe Lahe, brings their first play, Chitraa, to the city this Saturday. Adapted from one of Rabindranath Tagore’s most celebrated works, Chitrangada, the one-act play focuses on modern-day issues like body shaming and racism.
Tagore’s Chitrangada, written in 1981, is based on Adi Parva of the Mahabharata, where Arjuna meets princess Chitra in Manipur, a woman who was brought up like a man– a fierce warrior and archer. After falling in love with Arjuna and realising that she is not a ‘typical woman’, she adorned herself with bracelets and anklets only to face rejection by him. She then approaches the God of love and becomes a more ‘feminine’ woman in order to be more acceptable.
Although the story is almost 1,000 years old and the play a few decades, director and translator, Prataya Saha emphasises that the story is just as relevant today. “We’re so deeply conditioned as a society that the problems of skin colour and body shaming that existed centuries ago haven’t vanished yet,” he says. With a poetry recital and a neoclassical slow-dance in the beginning, the play seeks to explore the harsh reality of women who are burdened with ‘ideal beauty standards’.
In order to make the play more suitable to today’s world, Prataya says that a few comedy parts have been improvised, while the romantic bits remains untouched to give the audience a taste of romance from centuries ago.
Ticket: Rs.200. On June 2, 7 pm onwards. At Lamakaan.