This weekend, five women child abuse survivors travel to Hyderabad to narrate their personal stories in a theatre performance. Titled ‘Positively Shameless’, the production is hosted by city-based Break The Silence and Kriti Social Initiatives and directed by Maitri Gopalakrishna and Shabari Rao. Shabari shares that the play was derived as part of Maitri Gopalakrishna’s Ph.D research in drama therapy. “She had put out a call for adult women survivors of child sexual abuse. After she finished working, she and several other participants felt that many of the issues were not just psychological but resulted from social issues like patriarchy, telling women how to behave and ignoring a child’s trauma.” It was then that Maitri reached out to Shabari and along with five women embarked on this process of making a performance. “The idea of a performance is to continue the therapeutic work for these five women and at the same time develop a strong piece of theatre. What we have often found is that therapy remains in a very private personal space and is never made public. Also performances on issues become preachy and moralising,” she says and adds with a smile, “We wanted to stay away from that.”
High achievers
The special feature is that all the five women who recreate what they endured in their childhood are now high achievers in their personal and professional lives. While one is an architect and runs her own firm, the others are a sexuality educator, soft skills trainer, leadership trainer and a student doing her masters in psychology. “They are successful in their own lives but then there is one aspect of their childhood which still has some impact on how they are as adults, they feel. That’s why they wanted to be a part of this,” points out Shabari.
The performance was first staged in Rangasthala in Bengaluru last year. “We had a overwhelmingly positive response from various circles — from counsellors and therapists, grassroot level workers in the field of child sexual abuse and even lay people,” recalls Shabari. The second round of staging began with a performance in Delhi as part of the recent Delhi Police Week and then Bengaluru.
Crafted disclosure
Rehearsals were long and created an overwhelming experience for the team “We were this group of seven women — two directors and five players (the participants) and we developed a strong emotional bond with each other. Also for the fact that Maitri herself is a trained therapist, she was able to hold the therapeutic side and help the players through their own journey. Although it was emotionally tough, at no point, we felt like we couldn’t continue,” recalls Shabari
When we point out that it is courageous for these women to come forward to share their stories, Shabari says the process has been possible because of ‘Crafted Disclosure.’ “It means we tell only as much as we want to in the way that we want to tell. Because of it, the players that we call them now, feel confident and comfortable to share their stories. If somebody were to say, ‘Tell me exactly what happened’ they say, ‘No, sorry. I don’t want to talk about that.’ They are very clear about their boundaries.”
She shares how their parenting has undergone a huge shift. “Out of the seven women in the group, six of us have children. There is a shift in how we talk to our kids and bring them up. Should we bring them up as shy girls and aggressive men or how do we socialise our children? The group looks forward to their Hyderabad performance. Shabari states in conclusion, “People say male voice is missing here. Maybe if a group of men would like to do it, we would be happy to support in any way.”
