Journal of South Asia Women Studies

When Sangita Rayamajhi published All Mothers Are Working Mothers in 2005, she became the first and, so far, the only Nepali female playwright to publish a play. It shows scenes from the life of a woman who sacrifices her own fulfillment for the happiness of her children. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen undoubtedly influenced Rayamajhi, who wrestles with the same topic of the contending pulls of duty to one’s family and duty to oneself that Ibsen dramatizes in A Doll House. Male Nepali playwrights influenced by Ibsen also wrote plays with women at the center, but their plays, according to Rayamajhi, are weakened by their unconscious male hegemonic vantage. Rayamajhi’s protagonist decides on a plan diametrically opposed to the one Ibsen’s Nora takes when she leaves her home, slamming the door behind her.

Western and Nepali dramatic literary heritage played their roles in the development of Rayamajhi’s dramaturgy. This review paper examines the ancestry of Rayamajhi’s dramaturgy, to help us appreciate why the radical decision a male playwright could make for his protagonist in 1879 Norway could not be made by a female playwright in 2004 Nepal.