Choosing a contemporary Indian play based on traditional Indian folktales for a liberal arts audience seems to make sense from a multiculturalist standpoint. The viewers are exposed to a reflection of another world, another tradition, another kind of theatre. But is it justifiable when that reflection seems to reinscribe the patriarchal sensibilities of a very mate-dominated society? How is an American audience supposed to respond to Rani, when she appears to reinforce the stereotype of a subservient wife? If we superimpose contemporary Western standards of what a "liberated woman" should be onto this character, she will fail to have strength in our eyes. Therefore, it is important to realize the context in which this play takes place.

In India, among different cultures, there is a traditional expectation of ideal womanhood; above all, this means being a perfect wife. Marriage is generally not the happy result of an accident of fate that we know as "falling in love." Marriage comes from duty and devotion, and adultery is the highest crime when committed by a woman. It causes shame for both her family and her husband's family, and is punishable by death. A woman must be completely devoted to her husband, regardless of the way he treats her. In the Laws of Manu, written in the second or first century B.C.E., it is written: "Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure elsewhere, or devoid of good qualities, a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife.... If a wife obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be exalted in heaven." A woman's virtue is to serve her husband unquestioningly; her strength is to do her duty even in the face of viciousness and suffering--she does not let the faults of her husband keep her from realizing her potential to be a perfect (devoted) woman/wife. In Naga-Mandala, Rani is presented as this ideal woman, the sati savitri (a woman of patience, suffering, and loyalty).

What makes this play interesting is that Rani finds a kind of liberation in the space between truth and fiction, in the illusions that she maintains and in the stories she tells herself. Rani is powerful because she finds a way to live outside the world of devotion and suffering while still retaining her strength as a virtuous and patient woman. It is not from simplicity or ignorance that Rani does not question her mysterious circumstances. She fosters these illusions because she knows that if they are revealed, she may lose the part of her life that is filled with passion, compassion, and freedom. Rani has control over this one aspect of her life: she purposefully avoids discovering the whole truth.

Between men and women in both India and the United States, there is a range of relationships. In both places (and indeed everywhere?), people of both sexes can have a daytime face and a night- time face: faces they put on for work, for family relations, for lovers. Regardless of the setting, we can identify with this need to fill our lives with stories, and sometimes evade the truth in order to live outside the margins of social expectations and cultural constructions. It is within this space of illusions, magic, and wonder that we find the power and strength to live in a world that is sometimes mundane and sometimes mystifying.

Alana Smith