In February last year, when Rehan Shaurya thought of scripting a play on the confessions of three rapists, he knew it was a tightrope walk. "Here was a man writing a monologue from the perspective of a rapist. There was the danger of being perceived as somebody who is defending the perpetrators," says the co-founder of Dream Stage productions. The idea, he says, was not to justify their actions, but explore where the disregard for the human body comes from and why.

Actor Akshay Kohli during a rehearsal of the Red Rapist