BLANCA AÑÓN

Written by Vijay Tendulkar

Directed by Nikhil Mehta
Costumes by Meriweather Snipes
Projections by Andrew Lazarow
Lights by Gertjan Houben

3LD Arts Center  New York_2013

Vijay Tendulkar’s play Sakharam Binder, with its complex layers of morals and sexuality, was created 40 years ago and remains one of the milestones of contemporary Indian theatre. Director Nikhil Mehta says, “Sakharam Binder is a story about the razor thin line between compassion and cruelty, between love and violence; about a man who enacts at home the control he cannot have in the outside world; and about women, who, against all odds, never cease to demand what is theirs.” “I believe this story has never been more imperative than it is right now, in the aftermath of attempts at radical uprisings around the world, from West Asia to the Occupy Movement. Tendulkar’s characters reveal with stunning clarity both the expanse of what human beings are able to endure, and the ferocity with which we fight for a better life,”The Columbia Stages adaptation is “set here and now. It is most important that the audience in New York is able to hear the text that so loudly resonates today,”

Blanca transformed a warehouse at 3LD Art and Technology Centre in Manhattan into a contemporary house for Sakharam. One side of the house opens onto the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village, “blurring the distinction between the world of the play and the world on the street outside”. The live video design explores Sakharam’s world through multiple video cameras, surveillance cameras, projectors and TV.