Portrait / Artifice

Directors Note:

As the name of the drama Portrait / Artifice suggests the play is about the portrait of a woman which transcends as a portrait of illusion. The understanding of a woman by men is always prompted by their own illusions, wants, pre-judgments, perceptions, and selfish motives. The perspective of is always focussed on the externals of the woman which mostly is limited to the body, and sexuality and is not on the inner persona of her. He is purposefully blind to the needs, instincts, impulses, and urges that are deeply buried inside her. She is created to be an obedient shadow of him, always bonded in the frames constructed by him. Whenever she longs for freedom and demands consideration as an equal living being she is physically, emotionally, and socially assaulted. This assault may take the form of rejection rape, bondage, love, deserting, outcasting, and desecration. The social and religious institutions, which were built upon the male needs and patriarchy could effectively suppress and silence the cries and anguish of women. Concepts about morality, motherhood, chastity, beauty, and similar notions reinforce the system of patriarchy. Romanticism and dreams about the bliss of being in love are also used to suppress and reinterpret the desire and persona of women.

The play Portrait / Artifice tries to analyze these conflicting affairs of female-male interactions/conflicts historically by placing an artist and a lady appearing in his studio, who may be a potential model for him. He is a successful contemporary artist who copies masterpieces of woman portraits done by masters. His reproductions are excellent and at times pass over the originals. But he has not done any original work, since he could not find a model who can incite and excite him. He is looking for one so that he can paint his masterpiece which will make him immortal. The lady who appeared in his solitary night, kindles his passion, inner instincts, desires, and urge to do his magnum opus. He is asking her to be his model, partner, lover, wife, and express his physical, and emotional desire for her through the various units and sequences in the narrative of the play. But the mysterious lady rejects his demands/requests saying that he is saying the untruth, and lies, and is incapable of understanding and seeing a lady from her inner persona. She says that he cannot paint her by seeing her externals and the construct of the body and physicality. He has to understand and start seeing her from within and art has to portray not the externals alone but should represent her inner persona too. Once he can understand her multiple inner realty, he can paint her.

The drama Portrait / Artifice discusses the artwork he had copied and his version of the story behind the characters portrayed in the painting. The paintings discussed are the portraits of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol, Lady of Shallot and the Soul of the Rose by John William Waterhouse, Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and Medusa by various artists including Arnold Bocklin and Peter Paul Rubens. References to paintings of the Mona Lisa and the Scream also is in the play. Each of these artworks leads to a dialogue between her and the artist about life, reality, passions, and the male understanding of womanhood. Finally, she makes the artist understand that she is not a ‘single’ entity that could be simplified into the romanticism of the external but actually constituted by ‘several’ layers of superimpositions of existences. The portrayal of her has to be multi-layered perceived from the inside reality, which may be an aggregate of the expressions of Medusa, Lady of Shallot, Lilith, Mono Lissa, Marilyn Monroe, and many more including Eve, a girl who committed suicide recently by jumping into the lake from a bridge, a nun who ran out of the monastery into the streets in pursuit of freedom, a spirit who cries alone sitting on the high branches of a lone tree at midnight, etc…Finally, the artists settles for her arguments and desire for peace and freedom and starts to paint her; but she gets transformed into fumes and disappears into the air, the smoky air into which the mystic lady disappears suffocates him and he dies out of the shock and breathlessness. The play ends with the ceremonies decorated with floral tributes and covering the body with a red fabric by the women from the paintings with a murmuring/chanting/singing Asadee which flourishes into a choral singing joined by men and women.

The narrative of the play Portrait / Artifice is not a linear one even if there is a steady and dramatic progress in the sequences and incidents between the artist and the Lady. Their scenes are interwoven with narratives of the story of Lady of Shallot, Medusa, and Lilith and references to the life of Marilyn Monroe, and Adam and Eve to make the overall narrative a collage of stories/incidents/events. The setting of the play is the studio of an artist at night. The text uses and discusses the idea of realism romanticism and expressionism as schools/thoughts of art and aesthetical expressions and about the hidden political ideology beneath the construct of Art. This will lead to the formation of the performance text of the play, which cannot be a simple direct linear narrative. The play demands sequences of multiple narratives as the strategy of expression is dense with images and metaphors, derived from Art, history, day-to-day and contemporary life that could kindle the memories, awareness, and understanding of the spectator.

The play is actually the interaction between a living man and the spirit of a dead lady, the past and present, the mundane and ethereal, that eventually leads him to the enlightening of his perception before his final moments.

Multiple and parallel narrations with the actors and simultaneous usage of multimedia will constitute the performance text of the play. Various paintings by masters, projected sequences of incidents (using the same actors), animated images and visuals, etc., that can add and supplement the actions on stage will be used in this narrative, to take the narrative ahead and clarify the theme of the play.

Credit:

Playwright-  Jebin Jesmes • Set In Charge- Rajessh Mohan • Direction Assistance- Anjana Sree & Sudheer Babu • Sound & Music Direction- Bijibal Maniyil • Music Control- Prasanth & Cathlin • Choreography- Sreejith P Dazzlers • Multimedia- Jojo Jose • Dop- Ashishkumar • Editing- Sanal • Production In Charge & Projection Control- Sreedeep Ps • Properties- Suvi Vijay • Assistance- Sarath Sv • Art And Costumes Design- Shobha Menon • Costumes In Charge- Sini Shaji • Make Up- Pattanam Rasheed • Lighting- Jolly Antony • Stage Manager- Sreekumar Appu• Design & Direction- Chandradasan

Cast:

Jiffin George | Johny Thottungal | Akhila Nath | Sredha Joseph | Arya Mk | Jayachandran Thakazhikkaran | Adithye K Narayanan | Najeeb Abu | Rajessh Mohan | Ferah Azeez | Siva Kumar | Anjana Sree | Sreekumar