Article 377 is dead. Long live Shakuntalam

Kalidasa’s 5th century AD Sanskrit classic  Abhignanasakuntalam, popularly known as Shakuntalam, has always been considered among the ancient Indian dramatist-poet’s best. Wonder what he would make of a special tongue-in-cheek gay adaptation of his work, a whole 16 centuries later, to mark four years of the landmark judgement by the Delhi High Court which struck down provisions of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalising consensual sexual acts of adults in private.

“We were looking at breaking boundaries of conventions of love, marriage and gender stereotypes,” says director Sarang Bhakre. “Our adaptation Dushyantapriya, apart from the iconic poet, pays tribute to legendary artistes like Annasaheb Kirloskar,

Balgandharva and Rituparno Ghosh who re-apprised female roles with such elan on stage and screen.”

The two-act play-within-a-play has 20-year-old Rohit playing a deer in the Kalidas classic. In an unforeseen circumstance, the girl playing Shakuntala quits. With just two weeks left for the opening, Rohit offers to play Shakuntala. He does it with such ease that the director decides all women characters will be played by boys.  

“This juxtaposes two men Rohit and Sushil opposite each other on stage as lovers leading to them actually developing feelings for each other,” reveals Bhakre. The fun doesn’t stop there. Chetan and Abhi, two straight guys (befitting macho stereotypes) are forced to play Priyamvada and Anasuya, Shakuntala’s sakhis (friends). This is completely unacceptable to them but keeping the job means doing the roles.

With such an intricate crisscross of emotions and blurring ideas of gender and sexuality this play inter-cuts between real lives of these characters vis-à-vis the characters they portray. Bhushan Kulkarni, the actor who plays Abhi told dna, “How Rohit differentiates between the character of a woman which he does with such ease and his real life, the impact on how he leads his own life, his own suppressed emotions, explores nuances of  identity with humour.” According to him, “Sushil’s romantic reciprocation of a man portraying a woman and the effect this has on his relationship with Rohit off-stage adds to the dynamics of the plot apart from the takeaway on gender and sexuality for the straight duo playing Shakuntala’s sakhis.”

The play is a fundraiser for Sanjeevani which works for the transgendered and hijra community in Mumbai and Thane district.

On July 2, at Karnataka Sangh at 7:30 pm