The Trojan Woman

One of the early experiments with finding new expressions to the text, Veenapani has explored the dance form Mayurbanj chau from Odisha to find bodily expression for text. This was the beginning of Veenapnai’s journey to find a way to link the body and its movements with voice. The play is an English translation of Euripedes’s classic Greek tragedy which deals with the destruction of the city of Troy in the wake of the beautiful Helen’s elopement with Paris , the prince of Troy. Veenapani Chawla uses the Chhao dance to give tongue to Hecuba’s sorrow in this play. The Trojan Women is a play that places women centre stage in the tragedy of war, where after the heroes have proved their worth; where women , who brought forth life and nurtured it, are left with the ashes of life and the humiliation of rape and slavery. Veenapani has also tried innovation in actor’s voice beginning her research into voice and text. For example, the cast of four dramatic actresses, three girls in the chorus and two male actors are being encouraged to declaim their lines in the style of the old Greek lamentations.