JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
THEATRICAL REVIEW AND DECONSTRUCTION OF GENDER CONSTRUCT IN MAHESH DATTANI‟S DANCE LIKE A MAN.
PROF. DEEPAK KUMAR DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, MODERN EUROPEAN AND OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGES BIRLA CAMPUS HEMVATI NANDAN BAHUGUNA GARHWAL UNIVERSITY Email- [email protected] Mobile No- 8650050639
ARIFUR RAHMAN CHOUDHURY M.PHIL (PURSUING) DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, MODERN EUROPEAN AND OTHER FOREIGN LANGUAGES BIRLA CAMPUS HEMVATI NANDAN BAHUGUNA GARHWAL UNIVERSITY Email ID- [email protected] Mobile No-7906634542
Abstract Mahesh Dattani is an influential playwright in the present period. He has written
plays for stage, radio and for the „big screen‟ and has been successfully vocalising the
dilemma faced by the invisibles and the marginalised in a traditional Indian society. The
dimensions of Dattani‟s Dance like a Man are divided as technical (nritta), cultural and
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 774 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
linguistic aspects. What Dattini has tried to put forward through this screenplay is that all
these patients are equally entitled to love, life and respect irrespective of any
presuppositions of society. Every character manages to come to terms with the situation.
Here the Researcher would discuss every aspect in detail that deals with the play and the
characters. In India people think that traditional dance is meant only for women and it is a
land on which no Male should ever tread. Here the question is not of mere dance form or
hobby but it has very deep roots in our culture too. It is about the whole conditioning of a
Nation that boasts of having the most ancient cultural tradition.
Key words: Mahesh Dattani, Theatre, Culture, Language, Dance, Drama, Indian
Tradition, Dramatic Technique.
Introduction India is a country with glorious past, harbouring countless myths, living traditions,
plurality of culture, rich archetypes, symbols, rituals etc. that impart endless expressions
and meanings to life. Despite there has been a paucity of dramatic expressions in Indian
English drama. As drama evolves and survives primarily through performance it also
requires an immediate connectivity between character and audience through living
language of cultural significance. The arrested growth of Indian English drama owes a
great deal to the lack of meaningful communication between the author and the audience.
The Indian dramatists writing in English, initially, found themselves in a dilemma. They
were not very sure about their target audience. They wrote plays either with the hope of
performing on an English stage or being read by the ruling British
Dattani was bom on 7th August 1958 in Bangalore where his parents moved to
Bangalore from Gujarat. At Baldwins, Dattani recalls his experiences at his Christian
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 775 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
institution. Young Dattani was struck by the aura of the Gujarati stage and the illusory
world of the theatre that would stay with him. Later, watching Gujarati and Canada plays
in his late teens he realized:
I didn‟t know the world at my doorstep. I got involved
in theatre and for a long time continued to do
European plays in translation. [....Seeing] Gujarati
theatre in Mumbai, I realized I had to unlearn a lot that
I learnt in school. That is when my true education
really began (Ayyar, 2004).
Dattani was a student of St. Joseph‟s college. He neither shows any interest in
literature nor any sign of literary imagination. In the year 1984 he founded Playpen, his
own company and began to look for Indian plays in English. He chooses English
language as his medium as one that is home grown and Indian-a hybrid language that is
spoken fluently by his Indian Characters. “...You‟ve got to be true to your expression also.
English is for me a sort of elixir given. It‟s my language as it is to a lot of Indians here
and abroad.” He gives expression to the longings and aspirations of the middle class
Indians. He carved out a place as one of India‟s premier English language writer. Each of
his plays tackles a different important social issue. His contribution is impressive and his
plays have defined the English theatre movement.
Dancing around the Indian Tradition
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 776 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
Working with multiple dissonances, rather than unity, Dattani‟s Dance Like A
Man become the contesting area of discordant forces within oneself, family and various
informing orders in society. A project of de-stereotyping gender roles, Dance Like a man
focuses on the damaging effect patriarchy exerts on the man who tends to keep outside
the gender matrix. The play explicitly deals with the problem of dancing like a man in a
normative pattern and invites disturbing “expectations”. Of course, it wasn‟t the
denotation, even the connotation of the four individual words; rather, what was disturbing,
was the silent “fifth” signifier -- creating a rapidly shifting “meaning” …The unusual
cohabitation of the marginal words, “DANCE” and “MAN”, creates a constant
commotion, anxiously trying to find a definite order/“meaning” at the centre of
signification, though constantly disturbing any fixity and creating space for contesting
ideas.
There is something very “Indian” about the play. He loves the traditional art
form, especially Bharatanatyam which is integral to this play. It is a play about a young
man who wanted to be a dancer, growing up in a world that believes dance is for women.
It was subsequently performed at the NCPA Experimental Theatre, Mumbai, on 14th
February 1990 with Dattani as an actor as well as a director. It was also performed by
Prime Time in 1995 with Lillete Dubey as an actor as well as a director. This production
continues to tour occasionally.
This is a play about performs; and uses theatre to demonstrate how in a world of
hypocrisy, acting becomes a way of life. Some critics say that the play probes into three
generations of conflict by exploring and juxtaposing the contemporaneous and the early
history of India in personal terms.
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 777 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
The present paper makes a modest attempt to explore the theatrical aspects in
Dattani‟s Dance like a man. The researcher aims at unfolding the several features of his
play. Dattani is widely appreciated for his technical excellences as well as displaying a
wide range of themes and subjects. The study is basically text-oriented. These select
plays have made bold innovations and experiments, dealt with themes related to the
present social scenario, in an effort to bring about social change, and sociocultural
revolution to make the people aware of the need to reform the present social structure.
The plays deal with the aspirations of the deprived mid marginalised sections of society
and depict the acute conflicts of contemporary city life.
Language, Culture and Morality
Dattani shows his command of language in the play. The playwright uses the
original Hindi words like - kurta, mithai, guruji, jalebi, gulmohar, Navratri Utsav etc. as
the use of English equivalents cannot fully bring out the concepts. His dialogue is crisp
and pointed. When Dattani is critical of the contemporary society, he composes powerful
dialogue of a serious nature. At the same time, he can be witty as the occasion demands.
It is obvious through the dialogue between Amritlal and Jairaj as well as Jairaj and Ratna.
Here is an example:
“Ratna: Why bring it up now after forty —
Jairaj: You brought it up. What did you say? I stopped
being a man for you became we couldn‟t survive
on our own.
Ratna: I didn‟t say like that!
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 778 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
Jairaj: Your face tells me you did.
Ratna: You mustn‟t take notice of what I say when
I‟m upset.
Jairaj: That is the only time you make sense to
me.”(Dattani, 410)
In Dattani, “the focus is on the family as the representative unit of the corruption
of culture and morality, in whose midst the politics of ambition takes on the most ruthless
forms”. Jairaj‟s choice of dance, a feminine pursuit -- more specifically the harlot‟s
pursuit -- disturbs the hetero-patriarchal normality. The play presents the complexities
and intricacies issuing from its protagonist‟s refusal to conform to the culture-specific
genre of “man”, and the consequentially emergent complications in a modern post-
independence urban India. As in other plays, family is portrayed as a product of the value
system the society stands for and the cultural discourse of which it is a part. The play
records how the wide socio cultural discomfort with the culturally disruptive image of a
male dancer jeopardizes the intimacies and sense of belonging in a family, and how the
members, in their “need to belong”, interrogate the deviation.
Breaking Gender Stereotypes
Interpretations of sexual differences are complex. Almost all observations
declare women bodies to be inherently inferior. Dance Like A Man highlights that it's not
only always a woman who suffers in society but even men are rendered helpless as a
consequence of cultural conditioning. Men's voices sometimes remain unheard because
primarily they are considered as oppressors and nobody notices their oppression by
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 779 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
society. A patriarchal society suppresses a woman by associating only the "feminine"
qualities with her, as her counterpart, a man is expected to conform to standardized
"masculine" qualities.
In India, literature of all languages have penned down the pathetic plight of
women. And thereby have raised voices against this inhumane treatment to women.
Indian writing in English is no exception to this. One thing should be noted here that
feminism has got mixed responses from all over the world. Feminism has given birth to
two opposite attitudes namely pro-feministic and anti-feministic attitude. The writers who
possess favourable attitude towards feminism are called pro-feminist and those who
oppose this attitude are de signated as anti-feministic. Mahesh Dattani belongs to the
former category i.e. the writer with the pro-feministic attitude.
In Dance like a Man, Amritlal believes in the intelligence of his daughter-in-law.
He gives power to Ratna to prevent his son from dancing and allow him to grow up.
Ratna is selfish and powerful in tuning her husband. As a result Jairaj lost his identity.
Ratna and Kiran find themselves in echoing the views of dominant male groups.
Ratna fails in helping him to grow like an adult. Ratna is clever, selfish and self-
confident. To fulfil her desires she makes Jairaj to dance according to her music.
“A woman in a man‟s world may be considered
as being progressive. But a man in a woman‟s
is pathetic” (Dattani, 427)
All these torturous contradictions impose him to make a ‟pact with Ratna. He
thinks that he could at least change his son through his daughter-in-law. Dance is a
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 780 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
passion to her, too. Now he will consent to her career in dance only if she helps him pull
Jairaj out of his obsession and makes him a „manly man‟. The two can enjoy all his riches.
Thus the social bias against the art of dance among men is highlighted in the play:
“Gender identity is yet another theme that dominates
the plays of Mahesh Dattani. Dame Like a Man
questions the propriety of a man overstepping his
jurisdiction by taking to dancing, Bharatnatyam. He is
ostracized for he chooses to dance like a woman
though his 20 dancing is a way of expressing his
identity.” (Rozario, 108)
In fact, Jairaj with his obsession for dance is all set to demolish these stereotypes.
Giving a twist to these categorisations related with „gender‟ roles that consider women at
the receiving end of the suppressive power structures of patriarch society, the play
dismisses this perception and examines the tyranny nature than even men may be subject
to within such structures. A man is not once free to sacrifice his life for the sake of art
like Bharatnatyam at his will. Dattani takes his subject from within the complicated
dynamics of the modem urban family for this play.
The play is a discovery of Jairaj‟s ideals of life and the thrust of burden of his
life which has come close to the concept of stream of consciousness. The use of this type
of dramatic technique is not only innovative but also appropriate to reflect the fractured
image of life that is an authentic external manifestation of the important self of a
character on the stage. Lillette Dubery recollected the impressions of the play in the
statement: It is the beautifully crafted the way it moves and forth in time, Its use of one
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 781 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
actor to play more than one role that actually tests the actors‟ ability, brands it as
exceptional as the strong characterization and the „seamless‟ movements in time. The
social conventions of gender binary spoiling the grace of both for male and female, is the
focal point of this play. The play‟s dramatic structure moves around the notion that one
will have to fight against social conventions.
“A woman in the man‟s world may be considered as
being progressive. But man in a woman‟s world is
pathetic.” (Dattani, 427).
The title itself is to be noted because the play is about the gender battle but actually it is
reaching out to our roots. It is not the matter of being progressive that is the matter of
being sick. Amritlal knows that his son was not a brilliant dancer like Ratna. He Begged
help from her to make Jairaj an adult, a grown up man. Dance Like a Man deals with
many issues like marriage and career, conflict between the modernity and tradition,
patriarchal power, difficulty of devdasi, gender roles etc.
So far Mahesh Dattani‟s perception of women is concerned, it is quite
unconventional. In fact, he has no specific agenda of feminism to pass on viewers. He
tries to discover different facets of feminine psyche. His works depict the constant battle
between the feminine psyche and patriarchal order.
Dattani's Dramatic Techniques
Mahesh Dittani‟s plays are remarkable for the technical craftsmanship. Dattani
ensures that the enactment on stage will be effective when detailed stage directions are
given. He uses space very skilfully, sometimes as confining and sometimes as widening.
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 782 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
He moves from one part of the stage to another from one level of the stage to another,
and he lights up different areas of the stage at different times. As he does this, his
characters move in time. Age becomes youth, 1990s become 1947 and, past, present and
future come together. The complex structure of these plays matches their complex and
disturbing thematic quality. Dattani, very often places one character at a higher level so
that the play is seen from his review point.
Dattani roughly describes the three spaces as
The traditional,
The continual and
The radical.
The traditional: According to Dattani we need not go into the traditional aspects of our
theatre. There are enough people who are traditionalists who can vouch for the
permanence and completeness of our classical theatres and dance forms. We can pride
ourselves on our integrated performing art forms which are complete in every sense of
the world. It has technique, it has grace, it has power, it has emotions and most definitely
it has style.
The continual: A lot of us seek our identities in our roots or traditions whether they are
rural or urban, regional or international, or a mixture of all. It may be important to draw
from these roots and to create works that are largely inspired from where we come from.
To a lot of people their roots are a greater form of identify even if they have moved away
from the traditions that they seek inspiration from and yet they need to be true to their
times. This state of transition has created many great works in our country. It is an
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 783 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
important bridge that reminds us of where we come from and where we are today. It is
interesting that both Karnad and Kambar have used the same Kannada folk tale to give us
two gems Naga-Mandala and Siri Sampige. Both are so different from one another and
yet they share common roots. This is something unique to Kannada theatre.
The radical: While it is absolutely vital to have tradition and continuity, all is not well
with that. We do need change. We do need persons who are eager to explore and develop
new forms and languages. The radical theatre of nowadays is in all possibility of
developing the traditional theatre. If traditional and continual theatre is linked to our roots,
radical theatre is linked to our spirit. It soars like a bird exploring new horizons and
offering us vantage points that we didn‟t know existed. Both form and content have been
enriched by radical thinkers in our theatre.
Dattani is a theatre practitioner who loves art and not himself in art.
Painstakingly, he works with the actors to recreate his text in a form which suited their
approach to performance: a sub textual approach characteristic of actors with a western
training. To Dattani a play is never really finishes. Plays only really happen in the theatre,
as ephemeral events. The apparently permanent printed text is just one approximation to
what might occur when the piece is performed. He takes great pain in his stage directions
to explain the stage lay out expects the observers to fallow him in detail. Dattani presents
his themes in a multiple narrative way, moving back and forth across time. Through a
technique reminiscent of cinema he builds dramatic tension as it cuts rapidly from one
scene to another.
In Dattani‟s plays, the plot tends to follow a particular pattern. A visitor or a
stranger enters into a family with an introduction. Through him a series of events are
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 784 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
revealed. Past events are unmasked. Some dark secrets of the family are revealed. Once
the action begins to follow, the interest of the audience is substantial strengthened as a
number of lesser revelations lead us to the final theatrical coup.
Each play is something of a theatrical tour de
force from within which the characters don‟t
always emerge fully. They often have crackling
lines of dialogue but there is little ballast to them.
It is not character that drives the action; rather, a
series of hints and revelations lead us into
secrets that the protagonists would prefer to
conceal. By the end, they stand exposing, not on
what is revealed. The human core is not what it
is about; the situational drama is what holds the
attention. (Haider, 24- 25)
CONCLUSION
Dattani's ability to create meaningful and moving drama has established him as
the leading figure in English theatre today. Dattani is a complete man of the theatre
familiar with all aspects of stagecraft. Dittani's love of drama and dearth of English
drama in India inspired him to write more plays. He gives expression to the longings and
desires of the middle class Indians. With Dattani‟s foray into the modem subjects
changed the audience by homogenizing them with his theatre, and his theatre with the
taste of his audience. As English is the window language and vehicle of communication,
then somehow made itself an integral part of his own identity. With natural ease, Dattani
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 785 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
uses his chosen language. He finds it as the most comfortable language. Language is the
major area of challenge, and so this achievement of Dattani is significant. He uses
English for the stage with a high measure of capability. As the urban middle class speaks
English today, there is a rising assurance with the English language, shared by audiences
and playwrights and this is proved through Dattani‟s Dance Like A Man.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 786 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
Mahesh Dattani. Collected Plays, New Delhi: Penguin, India, 2000. p. 410.
Kasturi Kanthan, 'The strongest Fragrance'. Rev.of 'Final solutions and other
Plays, The Book Review, vol.19, No.3, Mar 1995. pp 32-33.
Kusum Haider, 'Essentially a Comic Muse'. Rev. of Tara and Final Solutions.
The Book Review Vol. 22, No. 3, March 1998.pp. 24- 25.
Geetha V. Gender. Calcutta: Stree, 2006. Print.
Miller, Daniel. The Comfort of Things. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. Print.
Subramanyam, Laxmi (edi.), Muffled Voices:Women in Modern Indian
Theatre,New Delhi: Shakti,2002, p.134
Raj Ayyar, „Mahesh Dattani: India‟s Gay Cinema Comes ofAge‟. Gay Today. 8.
48, 2004.
Mahanta, Susmita. "Girish Karnad's The Fire and the Rain and Mahesh Dattani's
Dance Like A Man: A study of Marginal Identities and Performing Artists."
(2018).
Kapil, Monika, and Mahesh K. Arora. "Dattani‟s Heroines: A Study of Selected
plays through Feminist Lens." IJELLH (International Journal of English
Language, Literature in Humanities) 7.3 (2019): 10-10.
Mathew, Binny. "Inequality of Gender-Based Victimization in Mahesh Dattani‟s
Tara." Available at SSRN 3254517 (2018).
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 787 JAC : A Journal Of Composition Theory ISSN : 0731-6755
Rozario Ignatius. “Contemporary Social Issues in the Plays Mahesh Dattani”, the
Plays of Mahesh Dattani: A Critical Response, eds. Dhawan R. K.et.al. New
Delhi: Prestige Books, 2005. p. 108.
Mahesh Dattani. CollectedPlays, New Delhi: Penguin, India, 2000. p. 427.
Volume XIII Issue II FEBRUARY 2020 Page No: 788