“And all men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;” (As You Like It).
From earliest times, writers, sculptors and painters captured the world around them by holding the “mirror to nature to show the very age and body of time his form and pressure” (Hamlet). Movies and photography have joined forces in recent times to reflect the current key issues in society. They throw shafts of light into dark corners and lay bare the essence of human behaviour.

Is the political situation in Goa very different from that in Star Wars:The Revenge of the Sith? The Jedi Council is in threat, the Chancellor seeks ultimate power, the brave warrior, Anakin, is lured to the Dark Side, doubts, uncertain allegiances, manipulations, power games, shifting loyalties, the state in disruption, the needs of the people forgotten in the battles fought to gain personal solidarity.

Shakespeare caught the imagination and the emotional involvement of his audiences, mainly working class people who stood in the sun for more than two hours to experience the raging battles, political intrigues, the central characters groping with their inadequacies, the clash of Good and Evil, the emerging concept of ideal leadership. He brought to life on a bare stage, the tortured human drama of British Kings and Roman and Greek leaders of the past. Stories set in kingdoms “far away and long ago”.

Macbeth like Anakin (Star Wars), the invincible protector is seduced by the promises of the witches (the Chancellor) towards power and murder. He soon becomes an unhappy small man, his mind “full of scorpions”, with his kingly clothes hanging loosely while he struts in his empty shell. Are the two Bushes and Nixon egotrippers in large black cloaks and black shining masks? Do we have them here? In Goa?

Do our Literary and Visual Arts reflect the key issues plaguing our society?

Recently, two plays at the International Center staged during the XI National Conference on Women’s Studies succeeded in driving home key social issues.

The first, a street play on the Baina scene reenacted the traumas and the sordid conditions of the sex workers from harsh recruitment to the dilemma of unemployment, the insensitivity of “managers” and the “moralists” who cleared the stain on our society, and the ineffectiveness of the social workers. Daring, explicit, with no punches pulled. A slice of life in the raw.

The second, presented the faces of Goan women through four characters living in one household: the generation gap between grandmother and her grand daughter, the absence of parents earning big money in the Gulf, two “other” interstate women - a “servant” and a paying guest, superior, critical but enjoying the benefits of being in the household.

Drama kept alive by presenting social issues is a vital force in the education of our youth. Could our educational system should provide the opportunities to stimulate literary, artistic, musical, creative, drama and film appreciation? The final still shot in Star Wars has the sun burning through orange-lit clouds. Sunset or sunrise? Is our political future a rebirth into the Dark Side or a glorious sunrise?