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Dec 6, 1999
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SPECIAL SERIES Mangai, 39
Theatre Personality
GENDER BINDER
Sample this: "Art without activism has no value. Activism without art
has no meaning." In her 15-year career as an actress, script writer and director,
Mangai has lived it. Some say she leans so far left she could fall off the map. Others
say: How many have left behind a conservative family and degrees in English literature for
what she believes in; how many have received Fulbright fellowships to research theatre?
Must be the talent.
Mangai has come to mean a statement on women, from plays in
Tamil on custodial rape to Mounakkuram, which questioned the image of Draupadi, Sita, and
norms of chastity, suffering and sacrifice. Mangai likes to call herself a "cultural
activist". Feel like arguing?
-L.R.
Jagadheesan |
