Komaligal — anthology explores sexual oppression against women

In Tamil language play

Komaligal

, four stories and battles of sexual oppression are documented—while four of them are different in their own right, the battles are all fought by women. The play is aimed at bringing the realities of the everyday oppression that women face onto the stage, says director

Vetri MV

.

“The first story begins with clowns, which questions pressing topics such as gender equality. The other stories explore other kinds oppression that women face such as caste-based violence, oppressions in the corporate world, and finally, the injustice faced at the hands of a paedophile in school,” the director says, adding, “At the end of all of this darkness, the play also explores the light that emerges in the form of hope.”

The play has been written by four writers — Krishna, Viraji, Chatrien Rajan, Praveen Sahadevan — with months of research behind it. “We went through a lot of newspaper articles, spoke to a lot of advocates, activists and also a rape survivor to research for the play to make the scenes as realistic as possible,” Vetri recalls.

The rehearsals, which saw the actors train in arts such as Kalaripayattu and Deverattam, took around five months. “We put up a therukoothu called Adavu a few years back, and took it to many places such as tribal villages, schools, colleges etc, as a travelling troupe. And following this, we wanted to do something minimal, considering the post-pandemic set-up,” Vetri notes. In keeping with their minimalist ethic, the play involves no backstage crew.

“The set has been designed to be movable. Usually in theatre, sets will be changed between scenes with the lights being dimmed. But here, there won't even be a second's lag between scenes thanks to the set directors Joseph Bernard.L and Delli Babu. Actors manipulate the set, lights and props in the play. So, there are no backstage crew in this play. This has been made possible by six talented actors — Abinaya,

Rohit Muralidharan

, S!va, Hariharan, Prasana and

Sugamya

,” Vetri points out.

While the play is predominantly in Tamil, it is meant to cross language barriers, he says, adding, “We have screened this play even among people who didn’t know the language. But all of them were able to relate to this play, because it is very fluid and metaphor-heavy.”