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On the Road with ‘In the Shadow of the Gun’ -- Marian Yalini Thambinayagam
In the Shadow of the Gun wriiten and performed by Sumathy with live musical accompaniment set and performed by Vasuki Walker came to North America for a three city tour March 26th to April 17th 2005. The play which Sumathy describes as “performing act/ivism” was performed in Philadelphia, New York City, and Toronto with each city drawing a distinct audience. Over the last few years the piece had been performed with a cast of three in Tamil to Sri Lankan audiences. In English as a one woman show it was performed in Melbourne, Australia in 1996 and shortly there after in Toronto, London, and the US. As it’s easier to tour, Sumathy resurrected the English version for this run allowing Vasuki’s music to fill any absence. As the work begins, Sumathy alone on stage looks at the audience in the eyes and proceeds to move though the stories of women as they negotiate nationalism and survive the violence of war, militancy, and the army. The stories do not present answers as much as they allow texture and complexity to emerge. They breathe life and give voice to the flat image of woman that is used to mobilize people. The work follows a doctor named Savithri and the women from whom Savithri is collecting stories. The women are of different ages and class backgrounds, and Sumathy embodies Savithri as well as these different women on stage. Savithri’s character is loosely based on the figure of Rajani Thiranagama was killed in 1989 though the events portrayed were purely fictional. This central character, however, is not free of critique. A sex worker who Savithri encounters questions why she’s collecting these stories inferring that she, too, will profit off women’s words: How much more horrifying would my tale be for your tacky little notebook pretty lady?... Lady,You see poems in those bullets garland those guns they’ll feed your kith and kin as long as they last. This struggle of who controls the women’s stories culminates in an encounter Savithri has with Tamil militants. The militants, invisible on stage, come to Savithri, ask her to join them, and ask that she give them the women’s stories. Savthri refuses replying, You want to give me the gun—the mighty symbol of power and take my stories away from me? But that is not what I want to do . I heal—Yes, Heal. Women’s wounds. Those gaping wounds of violation. I set out to find out why women cry when their children go to war; to know why they walk miles, alone in the dark, when even dogs have gone to sleep! The militants kill Savithri and papers representing the stories scatter. The memory of Savithri remains as her shoes stay on stage turned upside down. The women’s stories continue. With the militants’ presence no longer on stage and even with Savithri dead the stories still exist. In Philadelphia the work was performed in a traditional theater setting presented by InterAct Theatre Company, University of Pennsylvania’s Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, and the Asian Arts Initiative. The set and lighting was sophisticated and simple with platforms adding dimension and a sand pit extending to a foot from the audience’s feet. The sand added physical and metaphoric texture, the meaning shifting—time, desolation, thirst, land-- with the observer’s imagination. The Philadelphia run drew a predominantly academic audience and was followed by a discussion led by a panel of academics and one artist. The New York City performance held at the Brecht Forum was presented by Mango Tribe, Lines Magazine, and the 12.26 Coalition with part of the proceeds going to grassroots Tsunami relief work in Sri Lanka. There was an opening performance by Mango Tribe an Asian Pacific Islander American Women’s performance collective and a discussion that followed. Mango Tribe’s performance used spoken word poetry and dance to explore issues around family, detention, imperialism, war, and rape as a tool of war from a second generation APIA perspective. The Brecht Froum was under construction at the time of the performance. The walls were unfinished. The floor was covered with paper except for an area torn back to mark the stage. Chairs were wiped down to remove the dust. The doors were left open allowing the setting sun to mark the time and various street sounds to pour in. Thus appropriately the performance was Brechtian in nature with the illusion of theater stripped and the working elements of not only the stage but the physical space itself exposed. New York City drew an audience predominantly comprised of multiracial people of color activists in their twenties. In Toronto the work was presented by a group of individuals from the Tamil community. Held in the basement of a community space, this presentation was in a sense the most grassroots of all the performances. The opening act was by D’Lo a Sri Lankan Tamil American performance artist from LA. The performance entailed D’Lo in wig and sari embodying her Amma and talking about D’Lo being gay and “boyish” instead of a normal girl. After this monologue D’Lo reappeared revealing a shaved head and dressed in usual b-boy style with baggy jeans and a t-shirt to perform a spoken word piece. D’Lo’s performance and In the Shadow of the Gun dared to use gender and sexuality to challenge cultural nationalism employing two very distinct styles and forms. Most of the audience was comprised of diasporic Sri Lankan Tamils with a vested interest in the content of the work. A lively discussion full of critique and support of both works followed. The North American tour of In the Shadow of the Gun proved successful reaching multiple communities and inspiring various forms of discussion. The success was in part due to bringing the work outside the walls of a theater to non-traditional venues. The run demonstrated that great interest exists in artistic work of this nature both outside and inside the Tamil community.
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