Rangashankara

Ambe Ambike and Macbeth Aata

The play centres on the famous woman characters of the Mahabharata – Ambe and Ambike.  Jilted by Bhishma, the only man she loved, Ambe devotes the rest of her life to wreak venegeance on him.  The most idealized male character of the Mahabharata is seen in a totally different light when viewed through the eyes of the wronged woman.  Through a series of monologues and dialogues with her sister and counterself, Ambike, the play depicts a Bhishma, who emerges with the faults of any man.  But rather than follow the way of much popular feminist writings, the play probes Ambe’s own self-destructive vengefulness by juxtaposing it with Ambike’s attitude of acceptance and forgiveness.  The play is structured through a series of contrasts between myth and present, stage and the world, love and forgiveness.  Though an admixture of stylized yakshagana speech and contemporary lyrical idiom,  Ambe- Ambike explores the ever changing landscape within which a women wrestles  with patriarchal predeterminations.