Marappachi proudly presented ” Naanga Ready ” ( we are ready ) play perfomed on 18th April 2015, 7.15 pm @ Spaces Besant Nagar, Chennai.

Sumathi Murthi & Sunil Mohan, two long-time activists working on issue of gender & sexuality, have been documenting through audio,video & text many stories of persons of miriad identies and experiences who have transgressed social norms with regards to gender & sexuality.

A work shop was held, in two stages to evolve a play form documentation Sunil, Sumathi, V.Geetha, Prema Revathy, Jeny, Anusha, Sankari, Siva, Gowthaman Ranganathan, Deepak Srinivasan, Amrita Chandra & A.Mangai participated in those workshops.

Prema Revathi, took on the responsibility to shape the story into a draft-script for a play,  The Marappachi team then worked onit and brought their own ideas, experiences and inputs into the play. It is wish these various stages of collaboration that this play ” Naanga Ready ” came out very well.

Directors Note :-

I have returned to working on a play on the issues of gender and sexuality after many years. Our society and all of us in it are caught up in dichotomous frames of Male vs. Female, Masculinity vs. Femininity and Homo Sexuality vs. Hetero Sexuality. Within these there are further rules of that which are ” Natural ” and ” Unnatural “. Further, that which is supposedly natural is imposed upon an other ways of being and people. There are many who are opressed by this imposition and some others who, inthe process of obsessively imposing the norm violently suppress others and ardently control themselves. In this sense the norms of gender and sexuality work intandem with those of caste, class, region, ethnicity and religion.

Allof these have been imposed upon us. The realities of everyday life howener are far from within these frames, they multiple diffrent directions, Naanga Ready hopes to bring together narratives of oppuession by the norms and real lives that break throughthese and exist beyond them. The play asks us to search for people and their hearts beyond symbols that indicate imposed normative identies.

Artistes ot this play :-

Sankari, Ashwini, Sowmya, Tamilarasan, Tamilarasi, Mayuran, Thilagavathi, Ponni & Jeny.

Directed by A.Mangai

Script Designs Prema Revathi ( Based on the Documentation by Sunil Mohan & Sumathi Murthy )

Script workshop participants Aniruddhan Vasudevan. Mina Swaminathan, Spaces Dhakshinchitra

Music by Rangasamy Sri Krishna Kattai Kuthu Group

Lights Surendar

Sets & Costume Consultant Guru Suraj