Vikram Phukan runs the theatre appreciation website Stage Impressions. Since 2011 he has worked as a stage critic for both online and print publications. He is also a playwright and has written the play LIMBO besides writing for Arpana's production STORIES IN A SONG. He has written an Indian adaptation of Arthur Miller's THE PRICE, which was produced a few years ago.
THE GENTLEMAN'S CLUB is his new play and it will be staged at the NCPA Centrestage Festival. In this interview, Vikram Phukan deconstructs the role of a drag king and tells us about his writing process.
By Nishtha Juneja
Nishtha Juneja (NJ): Tell us about THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB.
Vikram Phukan (VP): I had written a 'drag queen' monologue, which was performed with considerable aplomb by Asif Ali Beg. Around that time, I met Puja Sarup of Patchworks Ensemble, who had just showcased their play ILA which dealt with gender binaries and everything in between. That's when the idea of doing a 'drag king' piece struck me. Of course, Sheena Khalid and Puja Sarup had been experimenting with these themes already, especially during workshops for ILA and further back, when Sheena was in London at LISPA, and was exposed to an outre alternative cabaret culture. There was a lot of synergy and promise in my interactions with Puja and Sheena.
We didn't want to just do drag acts; we wanted to take a look at the sub-culture itself. A lot of our scenes take place backstage.
NJ: We have known of males playing female roles in the history of our theatre and film. In your play, it is vice-versa. The 'Drag King' is a relatively new and unexplored area in our context. How does the play go beyond the novelty of this idea?
VP: I think there are enough instances of 'drag kings' in our culture, both in theatre and film. For example, Asha Parekh in Love in Tokyo or Geeta Bali in Rangeen Raaten or take Kalpana Kartik in Taxi Driver. The 60s were a transgressive time in their own right, which is why I felt Shammi Kapoor was such an appropriate drag persona for Puja, while Sheena plays a Justin Timberlake incarnate, offsetting the vintage with the contemporary. In theatre, there are drag scenes for women in Vijay Tendulkar's MITRACHI GOSHTA, and of course, Chetan Datar's JUNGLE MEIN MANGAL, a gender-bending take on Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
Possibly, as a kind of queer expression, drag kings don't really exist as entities in their own right in India yet. However, I don't think 'novelty' is the right word to describe it. None of us approach it that way, because for all of us this is very real. We have created a universe in which there are drag kings who thrive in the mainstream because we believe it's an idea whose time has come. Even if this is an imagined world, Patchworks have worked very hard to make it authentic and relatable, so when people watch it, they see it as an extension of themselves, and not some peek into some strange inaccessible world. To be honest, at its fundamental level, the play is about freedom of expression, any kind of expression, which is such a universal concept. We have tried to create a world without judgment, without censure. Real life is, of course, much more intolerant.
NJ: Tell us about your writing process? Is there research involved in it? You have written the play but the program note also says it is a devised performance. Can you explain this?
VP: I knew that working with a group like Patchworks essentially meant a collaborative creative process. In the initial phase, we discussed ideas and concepts that brought us all closer to the material - the universe of Shammi Kapoor's cinema, the lives of actual drag kings, the politics of the green room, and the competitiveness between performers. These were things I have generally been very interested in, so I don't know if you can call it 'research' or the coming together of several indulgences that, ultimately, we wanted to present an original take on.
I wrote down scenes initially, but was happy to see them transmogrified on the floor. Puja and Sheena and later, Rachel D'Souza, used the scenes as launch pads to create a new 'stream of consciousness' form. Later, I would restructure the strands that emerged and arrange it back into our narrative flow. Some ideas originated on the page and then took flight on the floor; others were created on the floor, and later crystallised into written scenes.
Everyone involved brought in their unique sensibilities. Rachel, particularly, was brimming with staging possibilities, and contributed in a big way. A series of loosely connected scenes started taking the form of an actual production. Similarly, Sheena brings her natural exuberance on the floor and that adds so much humour to the work - it rubbed off on all of us. Puja spent a lot of time inhabiting the larger-than-life persona of Shammi Kapoor, and her portions are very much personality-driven. So, as a writer, my work was participatory, and that is very different from supplying a theatre troupe a bound script. I must say, it was a very rewarding process. My next play, which is based on the life of BEGUM AKHTAR, will follow a completely different path.
*Nishtha Juneja likes to act and write about theatre. Nishtha Juneja is passionate about dance and food and has completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute for Communication (XIC).
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