German Spotlight 2024: Director Karthik Hebbar’s play focusses on a mentally disabled woman’s sexual awakening
Helmed by Karthik Hebbar, a dramatised reading of Lukas Bärfuss’ The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents is taking place on March 9, as part of Sandbox Collective and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore’s annual cultural exchange programme, German Spotlight
Reema Gowalla
The 2024 edition of German Spotlight, a collaborative annual arts initiative between Sandbox Collective and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore, is poised to begin on March 9. Every year, dramatised readings of select translated German plays are conducted as part of this cultural exchange programme. The ninth chapter of the event will open with celebrated author Lukas Bärfuss’ The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, directed by art activist, musician and theatre practitioner Karthik Hebbar.
The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents is centred on ‘sexual awakening, dwelling and meditating on the grey areas that escape the binaries that define humanity’. The plot follows the journey of a teenage girl, named Dora, who suffers from intellectual disability. What happens when Dora is taken off her medication and how her parents try to empower her despite being ill-equipped to handle her sexual awakening form the crux of the story.
When asked why he chose to pick this particular play, Karthik tells TheatreRoom, “I got to read three-four scripts. Some were extremely challenging, but all of them were amazing. Eventually, I decided to work on The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents, mainly because it dealt with a very complicated yet interesting subject. It’s about what happens when we empower people whom we consider mentally disabled.”
According to the director, the play raises questions like, as a society, how much are we really prepared to handle the ‘empowerment’ that we want to give to mentally disabled people? “Yes, we want them to be empowered, but we also end up invisibilizing many things that are uncomfortable to us, most importantly sexuality. We like disabled people who are achievers and we want to celebrate their accolades. But do we think about their personal lives? Do we think about what happens to their sexual needs? This play focuses on one such character. Once Dora’s medication is discontinued, which used to keep her drowsy all the time, she experiences a sexual awakening and seeks sexual experiences. But as a society, we have not prepared her to handle such experiences. So, she doesn’t know how to draw the line between consent and abuse. What she deals with in this process is what the play talks about,” he elaborates.
The actors leading the dramatised reading of the play are Yeshaswini Channaiah, Soumya, Chetana, Vishak Bhardwaj, Shivam Sardana and Anagha. Commenting on being part of German Spotlight 2024, Karthik says, “I feel really privileged to be part of this programme. It opens doors to your imagination and thinking. I am in awe of the institutions that provide grants to write such amazing scripts on such challenging topics. So, for me, that is a point of wonder from where I begin, because in India we hardly have grants to create such work. It’s an amazing window to see what kind of work is happening in other parts of the world.”
In order to lend a personal touch to helming the narrative, the director has incorporated his experience of working with the queer community, particularly that with the differently abled. Apart from that, Karthik also feels that it’s tricky when a man is directing women in a play that deals with a sensitive topic such as this. “It can be quite complicated, because there is the problem of gaze. How do I look at this? Should I try to exoticize this process of abuse, or should I communicate what happens through it? So, for me, keeping this gaze was a big problem. We, as a team, talked about it together. The female actors contributed to what and how much they wanted to portray it. Although we are trying to look at it as a piece of art, we also want to ensure that the characters come across as humane,” he explains.
The other plays to be featured as part of German Spotlight 2024 are Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Philotas (directed by Kafeel Jafri), Dea Loher’s Innocence (directed by Priyanka Chandrasekhar) and Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The Golden Dragon (directed by Kavya Srinivasan).
Catch the dramatised reading of The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents on March 9 (at 6.30pm) at the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore.
