The poltergeist princess of stage

We were supposed to be seeing a ghost story by a female actor from Bangalore — Anuja Ghosalkar performing Lady Anandi. The story is about the ghost of a man who is dressed as a woman. The woman, we were told, was Anuja’s mother’s father’s father. But that was just the beginning.
Telling the story of her great grandfather Madhav Rao — a female impersonator in early 20th century Marathi theatre — Anuja, in her documentary theatre, addresses the larger issue of being a woman in Indian society but in a form that is hitherto unknown to many of us.
For about an hour in Max Mueller Bhavan on Thursday, we were led through different levels, layers and images of the story of Madhav Rao’s life, which is also in a sense Anuja’s self-discovery through her character, F. While most part of Madhav Rao’s life is dug out from centuries-old archives and libraries, she, by her own admission, also took the liberty of garnishing the play with her own imagination.
But the play is by no means a mere biographical account of Madhav Rao, as the actor weaves prevalent gender issues in the theatre world seamlessly through her performance. The key question is perhaps what society, at large, means by telling someone to “walk, act or live like a woman”. Anuja challenges gender stereotyping and hierarchy in theatre in each and every layer of her performance. So much
so, that she even questions the necessity of having a director, at least for Lady Anandi. In fact, she says that she hates directorial hegemony.
Though she started Lady Anandi as a full-fledged play with three actors, Anuja later changed her mind because she felt amorphousness would be the most suitable form for this production. Consequently, she developed her own form to tell the story. Throughout the solo performance, she reads out the script, acts, and moulds herself to narrate the tale with the help of some old photos of Madhav Rao projected on the backdrop.
So far Lady Anandi has been performed as a work-in-progress across India. Anuja enacts the story of her great grandfather as per the progress of her research. It has thus far been performed at many places — a brewery, a film studio, a modern art museum and an under-construction office to name a few. After Thursday, the actor finally concluded that this, hereafter, will not be considered as an ongoing impression. Finally, the research and the form had coagulated, she said. The actor confirms that there is “nothing sacrosanct about her creation” and hence “there will always be a room for change”.
Finally, despite the innovative and courageous effort, Lady Anandi has its limitations. The script is too slender to support the Anuja’s bold ideas. As the audience, we would have enjoyed a bit more elucidation on the issues she touched upon. Having said that Lady Anandi is a unique effort that earned applause from Kolkata the audience.