Day 9 of 23rd National Theatre Festival

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 30

On the ninth day of the 23rd National Theatre Festival being hosted by Manch Rangmanch in association with Gurbaksh Singh Nanak Singh Foundation, thespian Anita Shabdeesh presented a powerful and moving solo act with the play “Gumshuda Orta”. Written and directed by Shabdeesh from the team of Suchetak Rangmanch, Chandigarh, the play staged at Preet Nagar was commentary on a society where women bear a heavy cost of living a life, which seems lost without purpose and dreams.

Presented from the point of view of a house maid and played by Shabdeesh, the monologue questions the cost at which living a life of choice and self-love comes for the underprivileged class.

The play has been adapted from a Hindi novel written by Krishna Baldev Vaid, Ek Naukrani Ki Diary (A Maid’s Diary) and focuses on that neglected section of urban life whose problems we never talk about sensitively but without which our work suffers and we cannot function. Its central theme is the daily life and mentality of house maids, who do kitchen work, child care and cleaning in urban houses without being acknowledged or even duly paid for it.

Narrated through a monologue style format where the protagonist seems to be reading from the pages of the diary, invisible to the audience, Shabdeesh skillfully attempted to recognise and examine the irony of this neglected class as well as the elite in our society.

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