Category
Theatre
Artists
Kavya Bose
Maitri Gopalakrishna
Shilpa Waghmare
Vijji Chari
Date
October 13th 2018.
Positively Shameless
Positively Shameless is a devised theater performance about aspects of childhood sexual abuse that endure into adulthood.
In 2015, Bangalore audiences saw the opening show of the ground-breaking theatre project, “Positively Shameless” about working through residues of childhood sexual abuse. This project grew out of a 12-week Drama Therapy Process in Bangalore, India that was a therapeutic intervention for women adult survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA).
Over the next three years, the project travelled to other cities in India engaging diverse audiences.
Play Portrays The Unspoken Trauma Of Sexually Abused Children
A part of us says “shit happens, forget it!” – deliberately trying to fight the undying rage which wants to fume out at one go, like a volcanic eruption. But the war rages on – “Leave it. It happened some twenty years back!” But it’s impossible to leave it. How can one ‘leave’ or even forget that horrid incident, and the myriad emotions of fear and disgust – and that resounding self-doubt screaming “Why! Why! Why!…” – inside the mind and heart that, at once, were so calm and composed?
The disturbed psyche and behavioural manifestations of having suffered child sexual abuse – and how it persists even through adulthood – was best brought out by the surreal performance of actors in the play “Positively Shameless”. A powerful and cathartic play surrounding the issues of child sexual abuse, it showed how the victims grow into adults who, on the outside, seem to ‘have it all’ – but the struggle they face inside is truly traumatizing. Fear, guilt and anger pillage their inner peace and self-confidence. The play incorporated a saddening yet true metaphor of a ‘packed-up suitcase’, in which a victim boxes up their true and free self, because society compels them to – thus forcing them to hide their joys and pristine memories, before the incident of abuse happened.