VANCOUVER — The Fish Eyes Trilogy is a trio of dance-plays (Fish Eyes, Boys with Cars, Let Me Borrow That Top) by celebrated television and film actress Anita Majumdar which tells the coming-of-age stories of three teenage girls in small town Canada: Meena, Naz, and Candace.
The play begins at the Cultch theatre in Vancouver on Tuesday, January 27.
Inspired by so-called honour killings, hip-hop, and teenage heartache, Anita’s tour-de-force performances celebrate the joy and awkwardness of youth while slyly tackling issues of colonialism and cultural identity.
“In school, I loathed theatre history class, because it always meant looking at Canadian theatre that excluded me from its definition,” says playwright and star Majumdar.
“And of course, there would be the dreaded moment in class when we got to talk about “world theatre” and some mention of Shakuntala was made and how India may have birthed one of the world’s oldest plays and all eyes looked to me. I was encouraged by classmates to take pride in “my country” and acknowledge its contribution to what the western world calls theatre.
“THIS is why I wrote The Fish Eyes Trilogy. While I’m dressed in very specific South Asian dance costumes and there are references to Indian pop culture and music, the coming-of-age struggles these protagonists endure are a reflection of what I watched the people around me struggle with in my small hometown of Port Moody, B.C. These young women battle a high school microcosm of patriarchy that’s still very much relevant to Canadian communities. Their struggle with female oppression isn’t due to cultural ‘otherness’ or rules according to a misunderstood, misrepresented ‘religion.’ So please. While watching these plays, don’t let the shiny costumes fool you.”
Majumdar is an award-winning actress, playwright and dancer who has been profiled in magazines such as Vogue India and Fashion, Anita attended the prestigious National Theatre School of Canada after moving from her native Port Moody, BC.
A Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominated choreographer, Majumdar trained in Kathak and other forms of dance for over 15 years. Having debuted in the film Murder Unveiled, for which she was awarded Best Actress at the Asian Festival of First Films, she went on to other roles in television projects such as the CBC’s Diverted, Republic of Doyle, and Gavin Crawford’s Wild Wild West.
She was the only featured Canadian actress in Deepa Mehta’s film adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012.
As a playwright, Majumdar was recently awarded the 2013 Governor General’s Protege Prize in playwriting under the mentorship of John Murrell, with the support of the National Arts Centre and the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Same Same But Different, a Bollywood-inspired musical written, choreographed and performed by Anita, premiered in early 2014 at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto and Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary. She also appeared as a judge on the OMNI/CityTV program Bollywood Star, a 2013 reality competition searching for Bollywood talent across Canada.
The Fish Eye Trilogy is written, choreographed and performed by Majumdar, directed by Brian Quirt and produced by Rupal Shah.
The Fish Eyes Trilogy is produced by Nightswimming with development support from The Banff Centre.
The play runs from January 27 – 31, 2015 at the Cultch – 1895 Venables Street, at Victoria Drive. For more info, call The Cultch’s Box Office: 604-251-1363 or tickets.thecultch.com.
