JAM Lays Bare the Gendered Control In Seemingly Liberal Households Mumbai’s prestigious Prithvi Theatre Festival, held in November each year, has a line-up of star-studded plays on the main stage. Prithvi House, a small rehearsal space with a seating capacity of not more than 50, becomes the seat of experimentation with Prithvi Fringe. This year, Golpo Productions, with director Bhavya Rampal at the helm, presented JAM, a play by Annie Zaidi.  A South Asia region winner of BBC’s International Playwriting Competition in 2011, JAM tells the story of two close friends who meet after a 10-year hiatus. Surekha (Anya Ghai) and Bina (Sharodiya Chowdhury) went to college together in Darjeeling and are now stuck in a traffic jam on the streets of Mumbai. There’s the incessant honking, the radio blaring inside, and the chatter of these women trying to get each other up to speed on their lives. Golpo Productions’…

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