Project Darling and the search for saucy sirens of yore

From Project Darling by Sharanya Ramprakash
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

We all know a sassy, smart talking, hard to please, tough as nails lady — the favourite aunt, elder cousin or family friend who is far “too cool” to care about being politically correct. Well, the theatre has had its fair share them and the Kannada play, Project Darling throws them into the limelight once again.

The character of Khanavali Chenni, whose every utterance was loaded with clever innuendoes and double entendres, was popular in Kannada theatre. In Project Darling, director and playwright Sharanya Ramprakash looks at the role of these women in the face of unrelenting misogyny.

According to Sharanya, the play came out of a research project for the India Foundation for the Arts. “As modern day women, we still find life suffocating; I wondered how and what feisty personalities did to subvert the system in those days?” Project Darling is about female sexuality at the crossroads of culture and censorship, and how these women circumvented strictures.

From Project Darling by Sharanya Ramprakash
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

“I wanted to trace my professional ancestry as a theatre person and I toured Karnataka meeting vamps, villains and comedians of the stage. This play is constructed out of that research and includes bytes, photos and personal stories of women of the stage before me.”

Sharanya also explored what women were allowed to say (or not) on stage and their play on words, puns and hidden meanings. “The way words were used questions notions of vulgarity. However, it can’t be denied that over the years, the dialogues for characters such as Khanavali Chenni have made a literary contribution to Kannada, though it often isn’t acknowledged.”

During the course of her research, Sharanya met with theatre artistes from Hubli, Dharwad, Ranibennhur, Gubbi, Tumkur, Mysore and Bengaluru. “The oldest was 88-year-old R Manjulamma from the Sri Nataka Mandali. That troupe comprised a group of women who essayed male roles, dressing up as men their whole lives. And as a company, they delivered quite a few hit productions.”

Yesteryear theatre artiste Satyavathi
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The plot of Project Darling revolves around five modern day stage actors’ bid to locate Khanavali Chenni. “This iconic character is proud of herself, shining outside the dichotomy of society-approved, gender based roles of wife, sister, mother and daughter. She belongs only to herself.”

It is confrontational, Sharanya says. “Project Darling specifically examines the female gaze on our bodies and desire. It also is comical because the women we researched had a blast. They shied away from victimhood, gave as good as they got, and had a grand time doing it. We thoroughly loved the process of making Project Darling.”

The kind of artistry Khanavali Chenni wielded, Sharanya says, placed her body at the center of the sexuality debate. “She had an opinion about everything and used hunger as a metaphor for all kinds of appetites; she placed divinity and deliberation in her body. I was excited to discover this character — she had a great time living in this world as if it belonged to us women, even if it was only for a moment on stage.”

“If I had known this was my professional legacy, I’d have been a very different performer today,” admits Sharanya.

The 90-minute Kannada play Project Darling will see performances by Matangi Prasan, Shobhana Kumari, Shrunga BV, Shashank Rajashekar and Surabhi Vasisht.

Project Darling will be staged at Ranga Shankara on September 13 at 7.30pm. Tickets costing ₹200 available on Bookmyshow