Award-winning playwright Yael
Farber, whose new work focuses on
the fatal gang-rape of an Indian
student last December, was inspired
by the protests that erupted across
the country after the attack.
"I remember feeling
this extraordinary sense
of envy when I looked
at India… I mean - who takes to the
streets anywhere else in the world to
speak for a young single woman?" the
South African said in an interview with
AFP. Shocked by the attack, she posted
about it on Facebook. Bollywood actress
Poorna Jagannathan saw the post and
invited her to India where the idea for a
play about sexual violence began to take
shape.
"Stories stay in public consciousness for a
limited time, you have to grab that
window," Farber said, explaining how she
chose to write and stage the play just
eight months after the assault. The show
premiered at the Edinburgh Festival
Fringe and ends its run Monday.
"Nirbhaya", or "fearless", opened to rave
reviews and won the Scotsman Fringe
First award for outstanding new plays.
Faber now has won the award three
times.
The 42-year-old writer-director, raised in
Johannesburg, told AFP from Edinburgh
she was struck by the public reaction to
the rape. "I remember wondering what
it would take for us South Africans to get
on to the streets like this, what it would
take to penetrate the numbness - what
it would take to care," she said.
The name of the play, enacted in Hindi
and English, comes from the pseudonym
of the 23-year-old who was gang-raped
and sexually assaulted with an iron rod,
and whose fight for life captured the
world's attention. "Everyone was rooting
for her to live. She testified twice (in
hospital) despite her grave injuries, she
demanded accountability from the
system," Farber said.
"She challenged ideas the world over
that rape victims should be quiet and
feel a sense of shame about what they
have endured. That's why her spirit
ignited people." Farber, who has won a
string of best director awards in South
Africa and whose work has been
honoured elsewhere, is no stranger to
visceral drama. Her plays often include
personal testimonies from her cast.
Her 2001 work "Amajuba" is based on
the stories of five South African cast
members who came of age during the
final years of apartheid. The December
16 attack, which saw the victim's male
friend badly beaten by the six alleged
assailants, is at the heart of "Nirbhaya",
which features five other storylines. The
cast includes Jagannathan, as well as two
other actresses and two more women
who make their stage debuts.
All five relate personal experiences
dealing with sexual abuse and assaults as
children and adults. Astrologer Sneha
Jawale's monologue recounts her
marriage to a man who doused her in
kerosene and lit a match, leaving her
with facial scars - all in an effort to extort
a higher dowry from her parents. A
single actor performs all male roles in
the play, including the part of the Delhi
rape victim's friend as well as the main
accused, who hanged himself in jail in
March. The young woman is played by
popular actor-singer-songwriter Japjit
Kaur, who sings but doesn't speak on
stage.
"I didn't want to put words into her
mouth. We may never know who she
really was so I presented her as an icon,
an archetype," Farber said. The victim's
family know of the play, she added. The
attack fuelled a furious debate about the
status and safety of women in India, an
issue that exploded again when five men
gang-raped a 23-year-old photographer
Thursday in financial hub Mumbai.
"It would be a grave mistake to just
dump the problem of sexual violence
onto India and leave it at that," Farber
said. "Sexual violence isn't limited to a
single country. Rape happens in South
Africa, it happens in Italy, it's not just
about India."
The playwright, who suffered sexual
harassment in Mumbai while
researching, said she was eager to bring
the show to India. "It's an Indian
production in many ways. I am the only
non-Indian person involved with it. I
hope we can stage it in Delhi on the first
anniversary of the attack."
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