Sarah Jones speaks to Shradha Sukumaran about her play that travelled to India

Women Can’t Wait has eight women speaking from behind a podium to the UN? Why did you choose this form in your theatre?

The goal is to present ideas. Sadly, there are a great deal of people who are not exposed to these ideas as much as we would hope. People come up to me after every performance and say they never knew of these laws, or that it was so serious. There is a great deal to be learnt from hearing these stories and hopefully this form has a different kind of resonance as opposed to just listening to speakers at a conference. Of course, I’ve also tried to insert some kind of humour in the performance — as much is respectful and appropriate — that reflects their lives in the midst of tragedy. I try to make sure that there’s an authentic quality to the play so that one feels one is watching eight different people and travelling to different corners of the world to meet them.

Didn’t you ever feel the need to dramatise the form more?

No, we felt there was no better way to reach the audience than to show them what women would really say. How they would tell their stories if they could send the message across to the UN delegates, how they would behave and present themselves.

You’ve used accents in the play. Were you using them as stereotypes or were they there to give the performance a more realistic feel?

I’ve tried my best to steer clear of stereotypes, which to me are broadly-drawn sketches of persons who symbolise entire groups of people. It usually ends up degrading them, showing an entire community with a narrow set of characteristics. Our goal is not to represent every woman in each of these countries, but to show one human face for each law.

How have different audiences reacted to the play — UN delegates, policymakers, ordinary audiences ...

(Cutting in) Or ordinary policymakers and extraordinary audiences... (laughs)

...as well as women’s groups.

It’s been overwhelmingly positive. In fact, I can’t say we’ve ever had a negative reaction. When we talk of policy makers, they have a difficult task, it’s impossible for them to instantly act on what they say. In fact, this play happened because some NGOs looked around after the 1995 Beijing Conference and realised that none of the promises made by previous governments to improve the lot of women had been kept. We had UN delegates come upto us and say, ‘‘We loved every other character, but the one from our country — we don’t have anything like that in our country. It’s very difficult to face reality and we are not pointing fingers, but the characters are chosen to show these laws do exist.

What about a country like India, where awareness is an issue but not as much as the lack of ability to act on it? We have so many laws that are never implemented. How does awareness about one more law (or one less law) help?

We want to usher in a global struggle. You may be unaware of a law in another country, and the fact that there is help on multiple levels and across borders. That you are not fighting this battle alone.

What about mixing politics and art?

(Delightedly) Oh, I think it’s a completely natural mix, don’t you?

And also adding a bit of Hollywood to it..

Yes, I have a role in the new Spike Lee film Bamboozled. I play the protagonist Damon Wayne’s father’s girlfriend.

How did you end up writing plays?

I started out by writing poetry that evolved into monologues. The poetry was based on different personae that I picked up along the way in the multicultural community that I lived in (an African-American father and a mother of European and Caribbean descent). The first play Surface Transit was also on eight connected character coping in New York city.

Moving away from the play, can you tell us about your involvement with Tupac Shakur’s posthum- ous album.

I was approached for my voice, to read out his poetry. And I thought why not. He was very young and it was an interesting period in his life — his social consciousness because his mother was a Black Panther. I have tried to steer clear of the rap though. Young children think of him as a hero but you have to take things in perspective.

And what are you working on these days?

I’m working with a Washington-based organisation called National Immigration Forum, an advocacy group that tries to improve the general image of immigrants. We’re all immigrants in the US dealing with a lot of strong reactions. I’ve written a play on that called Waking The American Dream.