Presented at Flax Studios in Oakland from November 15 to December 8, 2019, this production featured J. Jha in a solo performance of Geetha Reddy’s adaptation of the ancient Indian epic Mahābhārata. Condensing one of South Asia’s most expansive mythological narratives into a single-performer format, the staging relied on physical transformation, gesture, and vocal modulation to evoke multiple characters and shifting moral landscapes. By reimagining the epic within an intimate Bay Area performance space, Reddy’s text foregrounded the enduring relevance of dharma, conflict, and kinship for contemporary diasporic audiences.
Presented at Flax Studios in Oakland from November 15 to December 8, 2019, this staging of Mahābhārata featured J. Jha as the Itahasavid, a solitary storyteller who guides audiences through the epic’s moral and familial conflicts. Written by Geetha Reddy, the production distilled the vast Sanskrit narrative into an intimate solo performance. Through physical transformation and vocal modulation, Jha embodied multiple figures across generations of war, kinship, and duty. Positioned within a contemporary Bay Area performance space, the work reframed the classical epic as a living, diasporic act of storytelling.
J. Jha portrays Sanjay, the clairvoyant narrator of the Mahābhārata, in Geetha Reddy’s 2019 Oakland staging at Flax Studios. In the epic, Sanjay recounts the events of the Kurukshetra war to the blind king Dhritarashtra, serving as witness and interpreter of unfolding catastrophe. Within this solo production, Jha moved fluidly between Sanjay and other figures, embodying the layered structure of epic narration. The performance foregrounded storytelling as transmission, positioning the ancient Sanskrit text within an intimate contemporary Bay Area performance space.
J. Jha appears as the Itahasavid, the storyteller who guides audiences through the unfolding events of the Mahābhārata in Geetha Reddy’s 2019 staging in Oakland. Seated with minimal props, the figure introduces episodes drawn from the epic’s vast narrative of kinship, war, and moral conflict. The solo format foregrounds the act of narration itself, positioning the Itihāsavid as both witness and conduit. Within the intimate setting of Flax Studios, Reddy’s text reframed the classical Sanskrit epic as a living, performative exchange between storyteller and audience.
Promotional poster for the 2023 staging of Mahābhārata at Z Space in San Francisco. Written by Geetha Reddy and directed by Michael Socrates Moran, the production featured J. Jha in a solo performance encompassing multiple characters across the epic’s vast narrative landscape. Through physical transformation and embodied storytelling, Jha moved fluidly between warriors, kin, and narrators within a single theatrical frame. Presented in San Francisco’s contemporary performance venue, the work extended Reddy’s reimagining of the Sanskrit epic for Bay Area audiences.
In his first production in Silicon Valley, Marlon Ariyasinghe examines the core of diasporic identity, an encounter between traditional artforms from the home country and the self-awareness about their "representation" in Western spaces. In Exorcism: A Ritual Performance (2025), Amaya, a Sri Lankan-American visits a museum where artefacts from Sri Lanka are on exhibition. By using a museum in the West as a setting and incorporating elements of Sri Lankan folklore, such as Riri Yaka and Rukada puppetry, the play draws attention to colonial history and personal diasporic identity, and examines the themes of decolonization, repatriation, and cultural restoration. Marlon Ariyasinghe is a PhD student at Stanford University.
