‘Why She Did, What She Did’ centres around sexual and gender politics
We have all grown up hearing people say ‘everything happens for a reason’; why we do what we do has its roots and reasons in something — an emotional event/outburst, a physical occurrence, a psychological/mental affect, or something that only a person undergoing a particular experience understands and feels. Similarly, Medea has her reasons in destroying her enemies by killing her children. Why She Did, What She Did is a play based on Euripedes’ play Medea, with the plot centering on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason. When she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth, Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
Directed and performed by Shakthi Ramani, we ask the artiste what made her go back to the story of Medea and stage it for today’s audience. “Medea, given conversations and discussions, has never gone out of popular culture. She largely remains an enigma even today, but with each day, our understanding of her increases. The grey and humanity of characters is always relevant, much needed and helpful to engage with as an audience,” Shakthi says.
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The play is designed by theatre personality and founder of Theatre Nisha, V Balakrishnan and Meera Sitaraman. Balakrishnan points out that the sexual and gender politics of this play have been glared at since 431 BC, but the play delves into what the modern audience says about it. We ask Shakthi how she adapted the story for today’s context and understanding, and she says, “Adaptation is a design element, not really an element of time and context. Medea remains relevant even today, simply because she resonates with the humanity in all of us, the light and the dark, the reason and the rage. I believe the story by itself and the character is more than enough.”
Commenting on the sexual and gender politics that this play entails, Shakthi further says, “I would like to believe we live in a post feminist era but we don’t. We can relate to the times she (Medea) comes from, where identity and purpose was provided by the man for the woman. Take that away and quite tangibly, the woman couldn’t survive. In an instant, it was taken away from her and I believe she does what she does to ensure a present and a future where it doesn’t happen again.”
Shakthi has been an actor with Theatre Nisha for over 12 years. She debuted as a director with Urubhangam in 2019, and specialises in movement and physical theatre and most recently, worked on the Tamil adaptation of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The Soldier and the Ballerina. In Why She Did, What She Did, which is Shakthi’s 49th play, she performs solo and uses her expertise in movement. “Utilisation of the training happens with every play, ensemble or otherwise. The body finds rhythm and movement in every play, or rather, it should,” she says.
Telling us more about what physical theatre is, the artiste explains, “Physical theatre is simply about allowing the body to express or carry the story. In that sense, I am growing to believe, much like my mentor, that all theatre is indeed physical. There is a rhythm of movement and of the body that one strives to find in every play, and using other techniques of dance or yoga helps in designing movement.”
Tickets at Rs 300.
December 8, 7 pm & December 9, 3.30 pm & 7 pm.
At Alliance Francaise of Madras, Nugambakkam
Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
X: @rupsjain