Can desire be inherited? Or rather, can the inability to fulfill it trickle down through a family?
Once upon a time in Bombay, a widowed Uma Bhatt refused a suitor. He was Muslim; she was Hindu. Unwilling to risk her reputation, she shunned her heart’s desire. Shortly after this denial, Uma died. What might be the end of a tragic love story is, in fact, the spark that lights up Traces of Desire, a choral play chronicling the struggles and pleasures of female sexuality in one Indian family. Over three generations, these women gradually learn to embrace their bodies and yearnings, freeing themselves — and a fourth generation — of long-held notions of womanhood. Lina Patel explores the central questions of Lope de Vega’s The Widow of Valencia in this hilarious and moving adaptation as she takes on female agency and transgression, prejudice, and even the idea of womanhood itself. Commissioned by Playwright's Arena/UCLA for Golden Tongue's Diversifying the Classics, "Traces of Desire" is based on Lope De Vega's 16th century commedia, "The Widow of Valencia"/