Introspecting the Interior and the Exterior of Performance

Manjari Kaul from Cine Darbaar, in conversation with the directors (Madoka Okada and Savita Rani) and the cast (Takako Abe and Sujith Shanker) of Looking In and Out.

The play, Looking In & Out is based on the story, In a Grove, by Japanese writer, Ryunosuke Akutagawa. This story is about a man and a woman who are attacked by bandits in a grove, and who eventually come to different conclusions about what happened, based on their perspectives. The complexities of the plot reflect the parallel complexities of different gender identities in today’s world.

This production, fuses contemporary with traditional styles, Indian cultures with Japanese. It is an improvisational performance and relies minimally on text.

Cine Darbaar: 60 years of India Japan Peace treaty. Do you see your selves as cultural ambassadors of your country?

Madoka Okada: For me it's not about 60 years of the two States coming together in an agreement. I am an artist form Japan and I am collaborating with an Indian (Savita Rani, the co director of the play) who is working in the field of contemporary performance. It's the amalgamation of two different stand points that matters.

Savita Rani: The celebration of the India-Japan ties is what has given us the opportunity for this cultural exchange. This chance to exchange ideas with Madoka Okada and his team has been enriching. These differences of culture when they interact with each result in a completely new product.

Sujith Shanker: This is not the first of India-Japan interactions. We have moved beyond looking at India and Japan as possessing a fixed identity. Specially in India there are so many different cultures. We cannot represent a singular identity that would apply to all of India. We are interacting and discussing each other's experiences as individuals.

Takako Abe: I see this as an individual journey. I am curious about what Savita, Madoka or Sujith think rather than think that a person thinks the way she does because she is Japanese. The fact we belong to different cultures are a part of the differences we embody as individuals, not the whole.

CD: Please tell me about Looking In & Out, its making and what it means to you as an individual.

SR: I have personally been very interested in the female body. Speech has its limits. Some things exceed the limits of speech and have a violent affect on my body and mind. When I started working on this project I wanted to explore the everyday violence on a woman's body. Thousands of years have passed but the way the female body is looked at remains the same. The well sculpted body of Mallika Sherawat is compared to the bottle of a cold drink. Where have we progressed in this globalized “developed” world? The check on the female body remains. If a woman protests with violently she's labelled “ feminist” as a term of abuse. For me this project is a looking into myself and out again in a process rather than a production.

MO: My approach to the subject is from what I am, a philosophical point of view. There is a woman in every person. It is that aspect that I am exploring.

SS: When Savita spoke to me about her idea about women and popular culture I thought I would approach it form the point of view of looking at hierarchies in masculinity. We are not just looking at act of physical violence but violence of the through cliché images and stereotypes that force us to act in a certain way to be accepted. We are trying to create a theatrical intervention to express this and not  convey things through simple sloganeering.

TA: As compared to India  the amount of stress on women's bodies are made invisible in Japan. This has been a process of self exploration for me.

CD: Does the language barrier cause an impediment or does it give other additional dimensions to your process of creating a collaborative production.

MO: Sometimes the language difference is a problem and at other times it helps in creating something good. As theatre people we have the ability to move and understand each other in ways other than language. Body language is not a universal code either. In some cultures nodding sideways is a way of showing acceptance. But there are ways in which a person mood, acceptance or denial can be made out. One of them is through the eyes.

SR: It is not so difficult to communicate in spite of the language difference. We are constantly trying to find new ways of communication. Even communication through words in a common language can be lost in translation. The words I speak may not have the same association and significance for you as hey do for me.

SS: There is no problem. Even in an audience there exists mutiliguality. The reality in India is that we speak one language at home, one in the autorickshaw and another at office or school. In theatre we engage with multilinguality even gibberish. We are like a harmony, each one plays their different notes but to the audience it seems like a melodious tune.

TA:  We communicate face to face, body to body so language is no barrier. It creates an opportunity for creative improvisations as for me a word shouted out in Hindi is a sound and I react to it as that, lending it my own meaning through my performance.

CD: In conclusion, what do you wish to convey to your audience through this play?

MO: We wish to involve the audience in our discussion of the issue and say that what is your problem is my problem, is our problem.

-Manjari Kaul

The play, Looking In & Out will be performed at the National School of Drama, New Delhi on the 15^th of January, 2012. 

For the same interview published in The Hindu check out http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/article2818448.ece#.TxrzI0WpmEQ.gmail