The Husbands
by Sharmila Chauhan
February - March 2014
UK Tour, Co-Production with Pentabus Theatre
It’s Aya’s wedding day. Her third. Her current two husbands aren’t too fussed. In a society in which there are few women, that’s just what happens. But as the household prepares for the wedding feast, a stranger arrives – one who threatens to challenge everything they believe in.
Against a backdrop of modern rural India, Sharmila Chauhan wove an extraordinary tale of love and wonder in an exuberant and challenging piece of theatre.
Writer Sharmila Chauhan
Screenwriter, playwright and prose writer, Sharmila’s work is often a transgressive meditation on love, sex and the diasporic experience. Her plays including The Husbands, Born Again/Purnajanam and 10 Women all place women centre stage and explore power and femininity. Sharmila has had two short films (Girl Like You, Oysters) produced and written two features. Her […]
About the writer
‘In parts of India, polyandry has become a necessity. Gendercide, as a consequence of the ancient preference for boys, the modern desire for smaller families and the increasing availability of ultrasound techniques to detect the gender of a baby still in the womb means that the number of females is declining. I wrote The Husbands both as a response to this but also as an exploration of the complexity of love, intimacy and trust between one woman and three men where gender differences and expectations are amplified. In a sense, this play is as much a warning as an allegory for the fate of women in The West today.’
Sharmila Chauhan
Toured to
Plymouth Drum 12-15 February
Birmingham mac 22 February
Leicester Curve 25 February -1 March
Shrewsbury Theatre Severn 4 March
Wolverhampton Arena 5 March
Tewkesbury Roses Theatre 6 March
Ludlow Assembly Rooms 7 March
London Soho Theatre 11-23 March
BSL Signed Performance 19 March