“Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair”- this alliterative phrase emerges from Shakespeare’s Macbeth to beckon the audience to look beyond the facade of its characters. Director Sheila Govindraj employs this phrase as the title for her theatrical production to question the popular stereotypes of social backgrounds we find in Indian society. F4 revolves around the lives of two women – Vaidehi and Rosa, who come from starkly contrasting social backgrounds and are yet able to forge a friendship based on their struggles of being women.
Ramaa Venugopalan plays Vaidehi. She hails from a Murukku eating, filter coffee drinking upper-caste family, as a sister of seven brothers and an only daughter, she has suffered neglect and finds herself abandoned by all brothers into a life of temple service and exploitation. Rosa, played by Spatica Ramanujam, hails from a fisherman’s family which has been destroyed by a new factory that pollutes the sea, their source of livelihood. She finds herself as an exploited domestic help at a home neighbouring Vaidehi’s residence.
This social commentary is visualised in the format of a simple plot based drama with three part setting, costumes, props and dialogue. Ramaa Venugopalan brings her skills as a Bharathanatyam dancer to breathe life into a demure, obedient Vaidehi. By bringing classical form into a theatre context, the dancer-actor kindles new possibilities in both fields. However, the play also attempts to bring other forms such as Bouffon and Greek tragedy. While Bouffon works in shaking Vaidehi out of her usual restrained self, the use of this form on Rose does raise concerns. Already caricatured as a bold, yet crass young rural girl, Bouffon runs the risk of degenerating her character into a cartoon. The politics of humour is fragile and while it is a powerful tool to mock those in power, it becomes precarious to use it to depict a marginalised character.
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The play attempts a social commentary, looking at how women separated by their caste can come together by their gendered experiences. Not only is Vaidehi marginalized into suffering by oppressive practices of patriarchy in an upper caste context, she finds solace in the company of Rosa, a woman who comes from a radically different background. The concern however is that, the cross-cultural friendship which is realistically so potent with conflict, is so endearing that it is almost fictional. Overall, the play is rife with critical content, with a little more nuance in its execution, it can stand out for its courageous attempt.