Akshayambara

The play explores the representation of the feminine within the male-dominated practice of Yakshagana. What happens when a woman enters the professional space of a form performed by men for the last 800 years? Drawing from research and personal experience, the performance imagines a reversal of roles in the popular Yakshagana plot of ‘Draupadi Vastrapaharana’. A male artist in streevesha plays the virtuous Draupadi and espouses the cause of a woman, while in a tradition defying move, a woman is cast as the Pradhana Purushavesha of a Kaurava who is driven by lust and power. What happens to the interpretation of gender when a man plays the streevesha and the purushavesha is played by a woman? Who is the real woman and who is the real man? A constant shift of power takes place between the actors as they shift from the cauki (greenroom) to the stage, engaged in a tussle that blurs the boundaries of stage and reality, male and female, thereby exploring the conflicts around tradition, gender, power and morality.