The Transnational Turn(ing) of Transposed Heads: Hayavadana in Weimar

Transnational theatre provides the avenue through which Joerg Esleben explores the German–Indian connection. Esleben depicts the efforts of the Marathi theatre and film director Vijaya Mehta to put on stage Girish Karnad’s play Hayavadana (1971) in collaboration with the director of the German National Theater in Weimar, Fritz Bennewitz. Mehta directed the play, which is based on an ancient Indian tale and influenced by Thomas Mann’s novella Die vertauschten Köpfe (1940), first in a Marathi version in India in 1983 and then in a German version in Weimar in 1984. Esleben’s essay illustrates the important role that Mehta played in the complex intertextual constellation of the myth of transposed heads, showing that her contribution to the transnational circulation of the myth activated its intercultural as well as feminist potential, challenging frequent evaluations of intercultural theatre as a form of neo-colonial cultural appropriation.