“If real change in the wake of Nirbhaya’s death is not provoked, then something more horrifying will happen. It will take that much more brutality to break the sound barrier again,” says Yael Farber, South African playwright and director of Nirbhaya . Based on the horrific gangrape of a young girl on December 16, 2012, the play ran to packed houses in Britain and is now being staged in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Farber’s production has already received several awards including the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award. Her earlier works Mies Julie , Woman in Waiting , Amajuba , among others are acclaimed for their powerful messages and uniqueness in treatment. In Nirbhaya, Farber uses live testimonies of Indian women who break the silence and come forward to share their experience and pain of sexual violence. Excerpts from an interview:
You are stagingNirbhayafor the first time in India. It has received great acclaim abroad, but it is India where the rape incident took place that egged you on to conceptualise the play. Do you feel audiences here have different expectations being closer to the tragedy?
Yes. Whenever my work about South Africa plays at home, I brace myself for the proximity of my audience to real issues at hand. Audiences elsewhere can lie to themselves and say all racism is exclusive to South Africa, or sexual violence is exclusive to India. They can hide in a level of denial, misguided as this is. This work showing in India is a close encounter. We hope — in all humility — that we touch the truth and we will know if we have done so if the audiences have a powerful reaction to the work.
If this production does not inspire strong reactions, then we have not done our job. The only reaction I hope not to inspire is that we have mistaken Nirbhaya’s death as a single incident or one worthy of our attention because it is different from the countless other incidents of extraordinary violence that women from all socio-economic demographics endure. It is clear that what happened on December 16, 2012 was the game changer it was because the media and thus the nation gave it their full attention. We are ready to embrace whatever reactions this production may inspire — as long as people are still talking about this subject. For each artist involved in this project — is our way as individuals of participating in a discourse that urgently needs to remain front-centre. We want to mobilise, to catalyse, to move to action, make ready, marshal, set in motion what was triggered by Nirbhaya’s death. I believe that this moment will pass. This righteous rage that was fuelled as people rose in protest will wane. Righteous rage has to become action. It has to be taken forward or it creates an even greater sense of helplessness than before. If real change in the wake of Nirbhaya’s death is not provoked, then something more horrifying will happen. It will take that much more brutality to break the sound barrier again.
The time is now! Women and men must break the silence that binds survivors to guilt and shame. These emotions belong with the perpetrator, not the survivor. This production is one part of the efforts towards this breaking of silence. We want it to provoke and inspire people to bring what they can. And that may be the simple act of talking out... about what has happened to yourself, your neighbour, your daughter. To stand up and say: This happened.... and continues to happen every day in epidemic proportions around the world. Just the act of speaking out is a start. We are not afraid of strong reactions. What other kind of reaction can there be? The thing that will keep me from sleeping is the preoccupation of how little is being done; how sexual violence is insinuated in our lives around the world and how that has to change.
You have live testimonies of sexual violence in your production. Did you and audiences in the West find cultural differences in the way the pain was expressed and dealt with by these survivors?
Everywhere sexual violence thrives because of the silence that is the learned response of victims/survivors. We see this around the world. It is certainly more potent in cultures that attach honour and shame to the “purity” of a woman. And the intensity to which this is taught in cultures varies. In this way we have to open the silence entirely. Tear open into and expose this form of violence for what it is.
What has been your personal understanding while writing and directing a play on sexual violence? The subject has universal resonance, but the crime continues to engulf society nevertheless. Is it all about power equations or sexual frustration or both?
It is a confluence of events caused by how we raise our daughters and sons. What we teach them to expect as acceptable. Rage, poverty, frustration — sexual and otherwise — are all factors But it is finally to understand that this is an act of hatred. Not desire. It is an erasing of another human being.
Your play has been very successful in the West. Do you see it making a difference on the ground? Of helping in changing attitudes among genders, men, families and ushering in a new generation that respects gender equality?
I believe in the power of the theatre to change lives. The direct transmission between actor and audiences is a capacity to create empathy, understanding, righteous rage — where there is none. It may seem naive but by this gesture of breaking the silence, we join a tide of people who have had enough. There is no going back. In whatever we can contribute we should. We are storytellers. This is an amazing access to people’s imagination and souls. We have to aim for the highest possible outcome. Nothing less than a revolution in our thinking and actions is required.
You have received several awards for Nirbhaya, including the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award. In India the play would have a very emotive appeal. Why are you performing only in three cities and what are the long-term plans for the production?
We are operating within the means we have. As people contribute to our capacity to reach more people, we will expand. We will be the size of affect that the community empowers us with. Our vision is to travel across the world.
We need people to crowd fund us to bring it to their country. Or provoke the institutions or individuals that think nothing of spending millions on fashion shows, weddings, red carpet events to throw their weight behind us. Let us be the size of vision we dream of for us all.
