A Fine Act

Updated on: Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The American Center in association with Aarshi Theater Group, Kolkata, and Naturaleza Humana, Berlin, New York, presented Kleopatra: The Dead Don’t Bite, at the American Center library, recently. Looking at the attributes of women in power, it was a solo performance by Abanti Chakraborty, a practicing theatre artist. It was a multilingual monologue, which was performed in both English and Bengali. Along with layered meaning, visual imagery and text, live video, and singing; it was a direct audience engagement.

The play was the result of an investigative process, and starting with Cleopatra, it celebrated those real and fictional women, whose existence and personas, and their ways of living, turned them into prominent icons. The solo performance of Abanti saw her magically transform herself into icons like Indira Gandhi, Hillary Clinton, Ulrike Meinhof, Mother Teresa, Indian Goddess Kali, and the other women who still live amongst us, and maybe conceived as heroes, in their own ways. The play not just brought back to us the ‘dead’ who have left an impression on us, but also questioned womanhood, boundaries of gender, media constructs and social acceptance through Abanti’s solo.

Directed by Charlotte Braithwaite, founding member of Berlin/New York performance group Naturaleza Humana, composed by Tareke Ortiz, an experimental music composer and stage director, Kleopatra: The Dead Don’t Bite was a success, and a first of its kind which the city experienced. It was the initiative of the American Center, to promote understanding between the people of USA and Eastern India, by organising and supporting a wide range of educational and cultural programmes and exchanges.

“This was a projection of reality through the tools of magic. And we were conscious about not glorifying any person or character,” concludes Abanti.

A Fine Act

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