INTERVIEW: Mumbai brothel is focus of Dipti Mehta’s play ‘HONOUR’
In the coming weeks, Dipti Mehta will bring her acclaimed play, HONOUR: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan, to New York City’s Baruch Performing Arts Center. Mehta not only wrote the piece, which tells the story of a girl living in a brothel, but she also performs the many roles in the show, including a priest, pimp, Madame, eunuch and others.
Mehta, a native of Mumbai, is an in-demand advocate of women’s rights and speaker on feminist issues. She created HONOUR to give voice to brothel dwellers. On TV, she has appeared in Shades of Blue, The Blacklist, Golden Boy, Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall and One Life to Live. She has also appeared in a number of films and plays over the years.
Recently, Mehta exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about the show, which plays Feb. 8-10 in New York City. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
When did you first get interested in theater?
When I was 6 years old, I was cast in a school play. It was a play about nutrition, and I was playing a part of a cucumber. I remember other kids getting really nervous and even crying, but I felt right at home. I was over the moon to be on stage, and that was it.
What inspired you to write and perform in HONOUR?
I grew up in South Mumbai, where there are many scattered red light districts since British colonization. I had seen women and children in these areas while using public transport, and there was something about them that tugged at my heart. I knew there was a huge social stigma against these people, and I just didn’t understand how or why they were different from us. I created HONOUR because I wanted to connect people to the humanity in the brothels. When I moved to New York in 2009, I realized there wasn’t enough mainstream work for minorities, and I wasn’t going to sit and wait for my time to come. So I created HONOUR and started performing in it.
Would you consider this activist theater?
Absolutely. HONOUR is not a show; it is a movement. I am out to eliminate social stigma against brothel dwellers. HONOUR is an attempt to give voice to people in red light districts and to have the world listen to them as human beings. We are also donating part of the proceeds to organizations that work on rescue and rehabilitation of trafficking victims. At the show we have merchandise for sale that is made by rescued victims or at-risk women and girls. When I travel with the show, I also offer workshops for marginalized women.
What do you hope the audience takes away from the show?
My hope is that their hearts open, that they see red light districts not just as a place of darkness but a place that is struggling to find its own light. I hope that they can see that a prostitute is a woman first. A pimp is a human being, too, and they laugh just like we do. They dream just like we do, and they have ambitions just like we do. Only difference is that the playing field isn’t leveled.
What’s it like to inhabit each of these characters?
It’s divine. These characters have made me a better human being, a better mother and a stronger actor. When I act as a man, it feels like I was never a woman not in the play nor in real life, and then in a second I am a eunuch. And then in a second I am a dream, and these are all the different truths that present themselves through me. When I am performing, it sometimes feels like I exist in a different plane. I am doing things, but I am not a doer, as if things are happening through me. These characters are so alive that I stop existing.
How challenging is the piece to perform each night?
I am not sure if performing the piece is as challenging as the aftermath of it is! At the end of the show, my whole being is agitated because I know that while the play is fictional, there are millions who are dealing with these issues in real life, and I am only one actor performing in front of a few hundred people. There is a burning desire to start performing right away.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Dipti Mehta will present HONOUR: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan Feb. 8-10 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
