“I got a taste of blood in my mouth”, is the song that woke the shabby looking writeru up who had been sleeping in a big white room with no decoration just like her unused blank page since the theatre’s door opened to the audiences at 7pm at Soho Theatre on April 13. She will be waking up with the same song and taking people to her dark ,sharp, tense imagination until May 8 .
When the writer Tarlochan, who represents the playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, wakes up , words appear on the room’s wall which make her restless throughout the play and she starts writing as her characters appear on the stage coming from seven different doors symbolised different diversions of her imagination.
At the beginning of the writing-acting ,the writer is in control and gives the characters directions, but that does not last so long. They almost write the play together but get stuck in the end. Her imaginary characters scare her ,argue with her but they all want one thing, a better society. However they can not find a good end for the play. Tarlochan says, she would rather give Nick Griffin a blow job when one of the characters suggest an end that she does not like.
Controversial playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti touches many sensitive issues of British society such as racism, homosexuality , weakness of ethnic minorities and their rights, white supremacy,…She does not avoid criticising herself while she attacks the structure of the society so boldly. She says she can not be a celebrity ,because she stinks.
The play is based the opposition between Tarlochan (Bhatti) and her characters which comes from her painful experience she had when she set a play to show religious hypocrisy in Behtzi six years ago. The characters who represent authorities like Home Secretary says, “Writers have not right to frighten the society.” ,which does not let her sleep. However she stubbornly wants her words to go into people’s heads.
Behud (Beyond Belief)is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti ‘s reaction to the suspension of her play “Behzti(Dishonour)” which caused violent protests in Birmingham Sikh Community in 2004 due to its setting rape and murder in gurdwara-a Sikh Temple.
“There is no trace of self-pity in all this. I don’t feel like a victim.I am not saying I was not affected by the experience or just sailed through it ,but I put myself in the firing line. You have to deal with the consequences .“,said Bhatti after her six years silence, in the interview with Dominic Cavendish ,Telegraph’s culture-critic.
Behud was shown at the Begrade ,Coventry 27 March -10 April before it arrived at Soho Theatre.
