Spanish poet and playwright Frederico Garcia Lorca’s pre-World War II tragic play of female suppression and repression, La Casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba), still finds an echo in the Indian subcontinent in the present day.
This intricate play about honour, propriety and fear finds a perfect home in the house of Pakistani matriarch Bilquis Bibi, who is mother of five daughters, in Jhang in the Punjab province of Pakistan, in a backdrop of terrorism.
Actor-playwright Sudha Bhuchar, who grew up in Tanzania and India, has set her version of the Lorca classic, called The House of Bilquis Bibi in Pakistan, but it could be easily transposed to India too. In fact, Indian director Govind Nihalani had adapted this play into Hindi and made a film set in Rajasthan called Rukmavati ki Haveli in the early 1990s.
The play is set on a minimalistic stage, dominated by shifting walls, to show the different areas of the house where five daughters of Bilquis Bibi, played by Indian actress and singer Ila Arun, are confined due to the death of their father.
“I did not start writing this play with the intention of giving a slant to Lorca’s play. I was inspired by my few visits to Pakistan to write a story about what I called “sacrificed daughters” and it was inspired by the things I observed and it reminded me and made me think of Lorca’s play and that’s how the marriage of the two happened,” said Bhuchar.
“It’s not the case of giving something a superficial slant, I have actually have in great detail adapted it and transposed it, so it’s a new life,” she added.
The mourning period and the diktats of Bilquis Bibi isolate the girls from the outside world, with no hope of deliverance as she has imposed impossible matrimonial standards for their marriages, leading to fading of prospects for all five girls.
The girls may have access to Facebook, Skype and cellphones, but they are so isolated that even the cries and songs of mango-pickers put them in a frenzy.
The downward spiral begins when Bilquis Bibi gets her eldest daughter Abida betrothed to her cousin Pappu, who is home for a holiday from the United States. He begins to visit their home with the matriarch’s consent, putting into play the petty jealousies and longings amongst sisters.
The most powerful impact in the play is made by Rina Fatania, who plays the servant Bushra, and tries to bridge the ever widening gap between the stern Bilquis and her daughters. It is through her sarcasm and one-liners that the real story of desires and struggles in the family come to the fore.
The life in a small town in Pakistan is beautifully etched in the play — from servants sweeping and washing dishes, electricity cuts, bazaar gossip, talks about bomb blasts and a paean to mangoes.
The House of Bilquis Bibi is directed by Kristine Landon-Smith, who has directed all of the Tamasha’s shows. Landon-Smith has taught at the National School of Drama in New Delhi too.
Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchables was the impetus which led Bhuchar to set up Tamasha in 1989 with her friend Kristine Landon-Smith.
The two friends wanted to bring contemporary work of Asian influence to the British stage and their first play was Untouchables.
“Tamasha started 21 years ago, it began out of a friendship between myself and Kristine Landon-Smith. We had met at Tara Arts as actors, we then became friends. She had gone into directing and went to the National School of Drama in New Delhi on a teaching assignment and she ended up doing Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Untouchables with her students. She came back and showed me the video and I just watched it and felt that we have nothing like that here,” said Bhuchar, adding that this led them to set up Tamasha.
Having introduced a number of talents to the British audiences, said Bhuchar, is an importance achievement for Tamasha. The theatre company in 1996 performed East is East, a play about a mixed-race British Pakistani family growing up in Salford in 1970s, written by Ayub Khan-Din. They play was made into a film, which starred Om Puri as the Pakistani father, and received international acclaim. Tamasha also discovered acting talents like Jimi Mistry (East is East) and Parminder Nagra of Bend It Like Beckham fame.
The writer-director duo has also adapted Hum Aapke Hain Kaun into a musical called Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral, English classic Wuthering Heights into a musical set in Rajasthan,a short story by Bhisham Sahni and Indian writer Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance.
“I am very proud and privileged to be telling stories from our backyard as it were, about our community,” said Bhuchar, who is ready to write scripts for Bollywood films, if given a chance. Bollywood scriptwriter Abhijat Joshi got his start with Tamasha with his play A Shaft of Sunlight.
“We are looking to make more connections with India, whether we go there, or we get actors and writers from India here,” she said.

The House of Bilquis Bibi
Adapted by Sudha Bhuchar
Directed by Kristine
Landon-Smith
Runs till August 14
At Hampstead
Theatre, London