Staging Monologues Around Justice And Freedom

Parna Pethe's directorial debut is an experimental piece, featuring four monologues by an all-women cast and crew

- Prachi Sibal

When Parna Pethe, a Pune-based actor, began reading Gurmehar Kaur's Small Acts of Freedom, she was intrigued by the young writer's ideas of truth and independence. However, much as she was fascinated with the text, Pethe found the task of adapting the book into a play too arduous. But these ideas, especially in the context of women, stayed with her. She began reading and looking for plays that would resonate with her thoughts.

That's when she found Maili Chadar, or The Stained Shawl, and Truth and Justice, a collection of plays by Shanta Gokhale. The second play in the book was a collection of monologues on truth and justice, all set in different spaces—in France at the time of the Dreyfus affair (1894-1906), in Sri Lanka during the Civil War (1983-2009), and in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. They resonated deeply with Pethe, and she decided to bring them to stage as the play, Something Like Truth. "The monologues, in essence, help us make sense of the four pillars of democracy. But, they do so metaphorically," she says.