{"id":752,"date":"2021-06-12T18:43:24","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T18:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/?p=752"},"modified":"2026-06-19T12:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:02:16","slug":"destabilizing-impersonation-cleaving-gender-non-conformity-akshayambara-and-lady-anandi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/23\/destabilizing-impersonation-cleaving-gender-non-conformity-akshayambara-and-lady-anandi\/","title":{"rendered":"Destabilizing Impersonation, Cleaving Gender Non-conformity: Akshayambara and Lady Anandi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Supraja R<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

This article offers an analysis of two theatrical productions that have graced the proscenium stage in India by utilizing an intersectional axis privileging gender nonconformity. It situates the destabilization of the category of impersonation, and the consequences that such a cleaving in theatricality effects on the public sphere. First, we look at Sharanya Ramprakash\u2019s wildly popular play Akshayambara<\/font> that draws on the traditional genre of Yakshagana whilst mediating and troubling binarizations of gender, class and caste. The second, Anuja Ghosalkar\u2019s meditative documentary theatre production Lady Anandi<\/font>, takes on an intimate rendition of the archive of her personal legacy as steeped in colonial theatre practice\u2014of \u201cfemale\u201d impersonation on the colonial Bombay stage.
Keywords:<\/strong> Akshayambara<\/font>, Lady Anandi<\/font>, impersonation, gender non-conformity (GNC), performatic, assemblage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The turn of the twenty-first century witnessed the Indian public sphere positioned amidst the proliferation of many protests, movements and contestations focusing on queer and trans* liberations. Despite the threat of larger mainstream subsumption, these movements have worked towards honing an intersectionality of caste, class and ethnicity pertaining to intra- and inter-regional discourse, by attempting to bridge solidarities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last twenty years have been marked by the need for (self-) reflexivity and a constant engagement with reviewing intersectional politics, the efforts of which have been palpable in myriad ways in scholarship and activism.[1]<\/sup><\/a> However, engaging the archive of queer and gender non-conforming subjects (GNC) is threatened by the hegemony of dominant caste and class rhetoric.[2]<\/sup><\/a> Nevertheless, the discourse surrounding these subjects has morphed since the initial explorations it posed at the end of the twentieth century.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interrogation of the colonial archive has brought forth issues of obscenity, gender, race and caste anxieties mediated via the corporeal of movement and performance practice surrounding GNC subjects (Hinchy). Given the zero-sum relations in the effacement of GNC publics by the heteronormative, dominant castes in anti-colonial nation-building, these historical contingencies need to be examined comparatively.[4]<\/sup><\/a> A space that has not been interrogated of these details is that of the theatre. I would pose that the anxieties around these subjects\u2019 hereditary performance practices[5]<\/sup><\/a> and their criminalized sphere of movement also came to be pitted at a tension with the emergence of the female impersonator on the urban proscenium stage. In many ways, this overtly gestures to the performatic valence of female impersonation\u2014an assemblage of the proscenium stage caught amidst the performative encounters of gender, caste, class, urbanity and nationalism (Hansen, Making Women Visible<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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