Deepa Gahlot Column: Age defying women in theatre

Itrsquos only in the theatre that women over a certain age are even seen as individuals not necessarily defined by their relationship to the men in their lives And when there is a portrayal of old age it is invariably melodramatic or morbid or both Parents abandoned by selfish children and suchlike Two plays premiering at the NCPArsquos Centrestage Theatre Festival have a rather unique take on age and death mdash cleansed of all traces of tragedy Earlier there had also been a Gujarati play titled Nanimaa in which an independent old women teaches her grandson a lesson or two about life Disclosure The writer works with the NCPAActors enact The Living Room at NCPArsquos Experimental Theatre on SundayMiss Cuckoo directed by Meera Khurana written by Adhir Bhatt and Bobby Nagra has a most unusual protagonist Pratibha Rastogi Seema Pahwa who prefers to go by her stage name Miss Cuckoo is brought by her son and daughterinlaw Aseem HattangadyDilshad Edibam Khurana to an old age home for performing artists called Golden Oldies She is a sharptongued and outspoken woman who doesnrsquot want pity When the manager of the home Chacko Kashin Shetty tells her family can come visit her often she says ldquoWhy Donrsquot they have anything better to dordquo She admits that she could get along with her daughterinlaw if she wanted to but their strife spices things upStill a home for senior citizens is not where shersquod rather be the stage and film star in her craves attention Much to Chackorsquos horror she changes with the windows open and walks around the corridors in the buff Being cooped up with other old people does nothing for her moralemdashshe listlessly listens to the radio reads poetry and gossips with another inhabitant of the home Khurana who excitedly carries news of scandalous goingonIt is obvious that Miss Cuckoo must have been a hellraiser in her youth and that prevented her from reaching the heights of stardom that she deserved the major male stars did not want to work with her She says without any embarrassment that she doesnrsquot know who the father of her son is mdashldquomust be one of the men in the drama companyrdquo mdash but in a moment of introspection also admits that women of her time were exploited because they did not have a choiceMiss Cuckoo sparkles again when a pushy young show promoter Pawan Uttam comes into her life though years of fending for herself have taught her to spot a lie and she is not taken in by his flattery When she sees his business card sporting an upmarket address she voices her suspicions which prove to be correctNormally people donrsquot expect a senior citizen who could be anything between lsquo70 and 103rsquo to have sex appeal but Pahwa plays Miss Cuckoo with an unholy glee that proves that age has nothing to do with a womanrsquos self worth or self imageThe protagonist of The Living Room written and directed by the very talented Kalki Koechlin is also an elderly lady of indeterminate age Ana Nil Sheeba Chadha is described as an old lady but she is astute and fleet of foot dressed in a lacy white night gown dozing on her living room couch oblivious to the thunder and lightning raging outside She wakes up to find Death Neil Bhoopalam sitting in her exhusbandrsquos chair This must be a rare play about death that is not gloomy mdash to begin with death has pale blue skin and is dressed in womenrsquos clothes to comic effect He explains that is the first time he has a body and want remains unsaid is that he probably didnrsquot know what to wearAna thinks this strange man in her house must mean she is part of some reality show and she spend the next minutes posing for an invisible camera She also phones her exboyfriend Joe Tariq Vasudeva who figures out something is not quite right Then Anarsquos energetic godson Born Kuber Jim Sarbh lands up he phones Dr Zeus also Vasudeva in a Gorucho Marx getup who finds the patients lack of pulse and heartbeat oddThrough the surrealism of the play mdash the sequence when Ana sees her life flash by it is believed this is what happens when a person is close to death which is beautifully choreographed mdash Ana remains quite unfazed In the midst of the chaos in her living room she remembers the ginger cookies in her oven which even tempt death She is a woman who has experienced suffering but her lust for life is undimmed mdash she has the nerve to tell death that she isnrsquot readyWomen like Miss Cuckoo and Ana Nil would never appear in Indian films they have to step on stage look the audience in the eye and say ldquoOld Who merdquoDeepa Gahlot is an awardwinning film and theatre critic and an arts administrator She tweets at deepagahlot