Headshot of Radha S. Menon. Credit: Provided by Radha S. Menon Credit: Provided by Radha S. Menon

Stateless in the UK until age seventeen, activist and multi-disciplinary artist Radha S. Menon emigrated to Regina, Saskatchewan in her late twenties in 1995. That’s when her performance career abruptly ended and her writing career began.

Menon’s plays have been produced at theatre festivals in Canada, the US, UK, and India. They include my favourite, Blackberry, Ganga’s Ganja, Rukmini’s Gold, Rise of the Prickly Pear, The Circus, The Washing Machine and most recently, The Devi Triptych — a series that explores the contemporary reimagining of traditional Hindu tales.

Menon is also the founder and director of Red Beti Theatre, Hamilton’s first feminist Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) theatre company established in 2011.

An internationally celebrated playwright and the current Artist-in-Residence at Hamilton Arts Council, Menon is passionate about the representation of marginalised communities on stages, believing inclusion is imperative.

To that end, Menon was a founding and board member of the Coalition of Black and Racialized Artists (COBRA), a collective of artists of colour, based in Hamilton, ON.

COBRA is comprised of members from diverse racial backgrounds representing a broad spectrum of the city’s arts communities working to provide access to tools and resources that are often difficult to source.

Menon was the recipient of the City of Hamilton’s 2020 Arts Innovation Award and the 2016 Theatre Award.

Her areas of expertise include women’s rights, Dalit’s rights and the decolonization of theatre, its practices and spaces.

Menon undertook researching and writing a comprehensive investigation into the publishing practices of Canadian play publishers. The resulting report, Canadian Play Publishing Report, provides invaluable insights into the world of Canadian theatre and publishing practices.

The report is an examination of published plays which were written by one playwright and not part of collections within Canada. Menon analyzes the representation of various ethnicities and sexes from 2011 to 2021.

“When I was undertaking my Master of Fine Art, our cohort visited Playwright Canadian Press and met with Annie Gibson. My experiences and correspondence with Annie showed the attitude prevalent with existing publishers. I had sent Rukimini’s Gold to Annie and after two years she still hadn’t even read it and when confronted she was rude and dismissive. This lack of interest in diverse voices spurred this research,” Menon told rabble.ca via email.

“I know that publishing companies weren’t pleased to find that my report showed them to be bastions of white supremacy — by rarely publishing Indigenous, Black or Racialised voices — they maintain the fallacy that Europeans have a literary edge in perpetua,” she added.

Menon reviewed 418 published plays from four play publishers including Talon Books, Playwright Canadian Press, Scirocco Drama – J Gordon Shillingford, and Coach House Books.

A significant majority of published works, 304, were authored by playwrights of European heritage compared to 113 racialized playwrights.

Of the racialized groups 40 plays were published by Indigenous playwrights, 22 by East Asian playwrights, 20 by South Asian playwrights, 19 by Black identifying playwrights, 8 by Middle Eastern playwrights and 5 by Hispanic playwrights.

Of the 418 plays, 232 were authored by males and 185 were written by females. Despite the nuances between different races and sexes, Menon’s report does not take into account sexual orientation.

Menon found that Talon Books’ publishing has made the most progress, but is far from being representative. Nearly 64 per cent of their authors are from European heritage compared to 36 per cent IBPOC representation.

Playwright Canadian Press, 72 per cent, and Scirocco Drama- J Gordon Shillingford, 76 per cent, publish predominantly authors of European heritage.

Coach House Books produces exclusively European heritage publications with the report stating, “A stark contrast like this raises questions about the publisher’s efforts to promote multiculturalism and adequately represent the broad spectrum of literary voices.”

Women as a whole are underrepresented with authors of European heritage making up the majority of those playwrights being published.

“This distinction highlights the complexity of intersectionality, where factors like race, gender, and other identities intersect to create varying degrees of disadvantage and privilege within marginalised groups,” Menon states in her report.

To remedy this inherent underrepresentation, Menon recommends creating a new play publishing press to support and distribute the work of Canadian IBPOC playwrights.

​She would like to see a system established to monitor the publishing practices of existing Canadian Play Publishers as well as the hiring of new editors within existing publishing companies that reflect IBPOC communities.

Menon believes more research into the practices of the entire Canadian publishing industry as it relates to IBPOC authors would be beneficial.

Menon has also taken meaningful action to include underrepresented voices within Red Beti’s canon. That’s why Red Beti Theatre is holding the 4th annual Decolonise Your Ears New Play Reading Festival from October 1 to 6, 2024.

“How many times do we have to see/ hear/ witness the work of dead old white men? Not even women, just men! Theatre companies keep churning out the same old fodder paying homage to culturally irrelevant literature. Yes, we all know they are the greats but what about living voices? What about women’s voices?” questions Menon.

Decolonising theatre means breaking free of imposed, rigid norms and expressing culturally specific ideas, mythologies, music, and dance through Indigenous, Black and racialized bodies occupying space in celebration of diverse unique identities.

“If you look at my research findings, you will see just how hard it is for marginalised women playwrights to get published. When women’s voices are ignored, stories are hard and rigid. When women’s plays aren’t published, our voices disappear over time and it is as if we never existed. The only recorded voices remain that of Europeans who seek to bolster their claim of inherent literary greatness,” Menon stated.

The Story of Tituba, by Shiann Croft, is a powerful exploration of Black motherhood, womanhood, and healing, set against the backdrop of colonization and its impact on the Black female body and matriarchal lineage.

Incorporating the voices of six generations of women, The Story of Tituba weaves poetic monologues with African drum, jazz, and ballet to tell the story of the first woman accused of witchcraft during the 1692 Salem trials.

How to Love a Desi Woman in Canada in Ten Easy Steps by Sheetala Bhat brings together goddesses and humans in a re-narration of a Hindu mythological story employed by a South-Indian woman living in Canada to come out to her family. Her story telling has unexpected consequences which forces goddesses and humans to confront questions on culture, shame, diaspora, caste and queerness.

Shaharah Gaznabbi, who performed in Menon’s August 30, 2024 workshop production of Devi Triptych — three plays each centered on a Hindu Goddess set in the present day — and who appears in season three of Run the Burbs, authored Lost Scribe.

Inspired by the story of Sheherazade from 1001 Arabian Nights, Lost Scribe is a Queer-Muslim exploration of what it means to create your own legacy.

The quirky, poetic piece follows Imum, an intelligent, quick witted, whip smart Imam and Wazir who paints the narrative of Queenie, a young, spirited Sultana figuring out how to take on the reins of her life.

In addition to decolonizing theatrical spaces, Menon has emancipated gallery space at the Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH). Touched By Devi explores the history of women’s rights in India within the context of Menon’s own family history.

The multi-media project is rooted in a 2019 trip Menon made to rural Karnataka, India where she spoke with women who identify as Devadasi. These female artists were dedicated to the worship and service of a goddess and lived in temples. It was a way for high-cast women to resist marital norms.

British colonizers banned the practice that gave life to India’s great dance techniques relegating Devadasi women to lower castes and forcing them to exist as criminalised, ostracised, exploited members of society without agency or self-determination.

“I’ve heard people bemoan the loss of Hindu culture when the younger generation push to change rigid cultural ideas and I want to ask these people: Whose culture are you holding onto? Do YOU really know your own culture? Do you realise that Hindu culture was derailed by British colonial imposition of frigid misogyny,” said Menon.

Menon is referring to sweeping changes made by colonizing British authorities outlawing seven of the eight forms of Hindu marriage. The only type of marriage that is now legal is heterosexual monogamy.

Before colonization, marriage dowries were paid to the bride’s family. Now, financially crippling dowries of $100,000 or more are mandatory to marry a daughter.  

Menon points out that before British colonization, “Devadasis subverted marriage by residing with the goddess in temples while claiming agency and independence, created all of India’s classical dances including Bharat Natyam and Kathak. This practice was outlawed by the colonisers and now Devadasis are exploited sex workers.”

Decolonise Your Ears is a pay-what-you-want event October 1 to 6 at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ontario. Touched By Devi is on until January 5, 2025 included in AGH admission although Thursdays are free all day and every day is free for Indigenous peoples.

Doreen Nicoll

Doreen Nicoll is weary of the perpetual misinformation and skewed facts that continue to concentrate wealth, power and decision making in the hands of a few to the detriment of the many. As a freelance...