Federico Garcia Lorca defines his classic Spanish play The House of Bernarda Alba as “a drama of women in the villages of Spain”. Its inspired adaptation, Begum Jaani Ki Havelii, is a drama of women from the historical Indian region of Awadh. Staged recently in Gyan Manch, the play was presented by Proscenium and directed by Anjum Rizvi.
Theatre actor Swati Mukherjee, who portrayed the lead role of the matriarch Bernarda, here Begum Jaani, performed with fervour. The play starts with the death of her second husband and her instructed mourning period for her family in her haveli.
Like Lorca’s play, the characters in the play are Begum Jaani’s five daughters, her elderly mother, a servant, a housekeeper and the invisible presence of a lover of her elder daughter. However, like Lorca’s significant inclusion of all-women actors, Anjum’s actors were all female but the servant. Begum Jaani, the matriarch, is a browbeat character, asserting her despotism over her family in every aspect. Her daughters lead an oppressed life, locked up in the haveli. She prevents them from eyeing or encountering a man. She restricts them from wearing make-up or anything except their mourning attire, like her own widowed state, on the pretext of protecting them. She locks up her elderly mother and shuns her neighbours’ inquisitiveness about her family by never letting anyone enter her haveli beyond a certain point and making them feel unwelcome at every visit, even if it is to pay condolences to the family.
Despite her tyrannising presence in the family, her elder daughter Tara Jaani (played by theatre actor Shromona Ghosh), manages to find an escape route. In love with a man from the neighbourhood, she continues her secret night encounters while the family sleeps and even plans to marry him. As an inheritor of Begum Jaani’s first husband’s immense wealth, her decision is not initially well-accepted in the family. However, jealousy of her younger sisters, suffering from the age-bound and repression-bound sexual tension and captive conformity, at her freedom complicates her relationship with her suitor and creates conflict in the family. This makes the situation even more uncontrollable for the domineering Begum Jaani. To put an end to the situation, she picks up the gun to shoot the suitor, the reason for the unbridled expression of her daughters’ personal desires resulting in the chaos in her home. However, she misses her aim and the suitor flees. But inside the haveli, the daughter takes her own life thinking her mother has killed her suitor. While the sisters weep and mourn the death, the mother shows no emotional weakness and expresses her relief at being able to protect her family’s honour and social reputation.
Presented like a chamber piece with a minimal set and lighting effects, the strong performances of the actors stand out and carry the play forward, captivating the audience’s attention throughout. “The entire Indian society is still not modern. This situation of repression and control is still common. Growing up in the Awadhi culture and seeing the lives of the women there, it was easy for me to contextualise the play to my Awadhi roots… the region and the culture,” said Anjum Rizvi, who conceptualised and directed the play.
Swati Mukherjee, who played the lead role of Begum Jaani, said: “Lorca wrote this play many years back in a European setting, but in our society, women are still oppressed. So, this is still very relatable. In the play, the matriarch is saying that her daughters cannot look at a man but she herself got married twice. In India, everything is still centered around the marriage of a woman and the oppression and repression, too. When I took the play to Anjum, he wanted to do it in the Awadhi set-up. To interpret the play in a language as beautiful as Urdu was a good yet challenging experience.”