An all-embracing stage

A city-based production house is giving stage-space to the LGBTQIA+ minorities by including more narratives of the community by the community.

The decriminalisation of section 377 has given an equal status to the LGBTQIA+ community but only to an extent. Their access into different professional and vocational spheres is still unfavourable and not in equity. Therefore, a city based theatre production house called Color Positive is trying to give a stage-space to the minority community, by including more narratives of LGBTQIA+ members by the LGBTQIA+ members. “Color Positive is a production house by a group of LGBTQIA+ and its allies and we allow anybody to do what they want to do. Anybody can be a producer; anybody can be a director if they believe their story is worth telling,” says Savio Mascarenhas, the founder of the group.

Savio founded Color Positive — the performing arts production house, out of a desire to pursue theatre after having helped a friend with his production. As a gay man, he wanted to do something for the community and before he knew it, he along with 15 members gathered every weekend to brainstorm and rehearse for their plays. “All of these people were not actors, and there were only two actors who had acting experience, everyone else were new. So we used to train them, make them confident, make them rehearse, make them go through their lines, and the first story we picked up was on HIV,” he reveals. The group staged the first play Color Positive during Queer Azaadi Mumbai celebrations in 2017, which was based on the emotional turbulence caused by the contraction of the killer virus.

However, most famous play Jeena, is a refreshing musical farce with fantastical elements that tackle the difficult issues of closeted homosexual relationships and the subsequent family pressure to get married. This emphatic play of a transgender-lesbian genie that comes to the rescue of a gay couple has been staged at the Gay Bombay Talent Hunt, receiving accolades. Even though the production house works pro-bono, to sustain their venture, they depend on donations and findings. “The beauty of Color Positive is that we don’t pay anybody and we don’t pay anyone,” assures Savio.

What makes the group extra special is their intersectional choice of stories. Talking about it, Savio reveals that, the group also advocates for women’s rights, animal welfare, LGBTQIA+ and speaks strongly against child abuse. Their last theatre production called Sex Objects is illustrative of the same. Inspired by the monologue format of the famous play Vagina Monologues, Sex Objects sparks a conversation on how every cuss word is attributed at degrading women. “It’s an LGBTQIA+ version of where we are, not talking about one particular part of the body, but about how women and LGBTQIA+ are objectified by the world. So rather than calling it on a body part, we called it on what people directly call it. So here we spoke about how every bad word you use today is to degrade a woman. Every bad word you use is to put down a woman, no matter if you are saying it to the guy,” he says.