A Conversation with Playwright/Actress Janya Govani, “Convenience”, The Henry Murray Stage at The Matrix Theatre, Hollywood Fringe Festival, by James Scarborough

Janya Govani’s “Convenience”, making its world premiere at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, explores a modern woman’s psyche. An intimate journey through the tumultuous inner world of its protagonist, it reveals the complexities and pressures that characterize contemporary life. Govani, born in Rajkot, Gujarat, India, brings a rich cultural heritage and extensive training in theatre, dance, and music to this avant-garde performance.

The production’s use of multimedia and experimental techniques pushes the boundaries of conventional theatre, heightening its emotional and intellectual impact. The inclusion of adult themes and nudity is not gratuitous; it underscores the raw honesty and vulnerability at the heart of the performance.

Govani’s background in classical and contemporary dance, along with her experience in theatre across India, Thailand, and the United States, infuses “Convenience” with a unique aesthetic. Her previous work in film, including the short film “Rivem” and the feature “Jack and Lou: A Gangster Love Story,” highlights her versatility as an artist and her ability to convey profound themes through various media.

The narrative of  “Convenience” is both personal and universal. It addresses the impulses that drive a young woman’s actions and desires, offering an introspective look at the struggles and aspirations that define her existence.  The poetic intellectualism that permeates Govani’s work provides a rich, thought-provoking experience, challenging us to reflect on the nuances of human motivation and emotional resilience, and commenting on the intersection of tradition and modernity, identity, and self-expression.

JS: How does your background in classical and contemporary dance influence your approach to theatre and performance in “Convenience”?

JG: I understood movement through dance. The kind of affiliation dance lessons in my hometown had with consistent, constant, unstoppable movement was prominent as well as telling. Telling of the fact that consistent training in a place where expressing oneself had a specific pacing and requisites and no presence of stillness. I had spent years training after which I understood what it meant to not move. The change was palpable. But the stillness also had to last 2 years and more, the same amount of time I had consistently spent time dancing everyday, for it to have equal footing in my art. And now that it has, Convenience is experimenting with using movement and stillness within the duration of the play the way a character I created would, given the circumstances, which, as far as I am concerned, are as grounded in reality as they can get. 

All throughout rehearsal, I have worked on reinventing the reality of the play each time I take it up to its feet. And using my body through freedom, and eliminating all sense of force is what I have led to define dance to be for myself. Every part of my training I have chosen to not include is a result of embracing this new definition, playing with it, and seeing what it could bring to future professional dance work. 

Besides that, The more specific experiences I went through emotionally being part of a theatre and dance company were equally important in being indirectly linked to the themes of the play as a whole. It is taxing to professionally work on any performative art-form for me. I often lose sense of ownership, which is what happened to me with dance eventually. I had taken a break from performing, showing myself etc. for that every reason. But merging what dance means to me with the effects the experience of simply living in the world has had on me as a body and a mind will bring about a mixture that will hopefully lead the way for the future as well. 

JS: Discuss the significance of integrating multimedia elements into the narrative. How do these elements enhance the storytelling?

JG: You know, I feel a sense of suchness in writing. I do not know what I am writing. I have managed to let go of any sense of control I have over it. I do not need to make choices, they make themselves. I know something is writing through me. I am an audience member watching all my desires play out in real time, as though I were in the most truthful theatrical experience of all time. Watching myself be all I need to be in my head, and making sense of it, fully, as it is being written,

And then comes the acting. Trying to find the same reality, visceralily in living the character I have seen in third person, something that is a result of my imagination and not a life on its own, is something that tells me everything the writing was not able to give me. The reality and burden and subtext and objective and intention and everything that makes the character what they are. The writing are the edges of a jigsaw puzzle I managed to neatly piece together perfectly, and the acting is trying to make out what it is that I joined with what. And make new sense of it, new meaning of it, in the audience’s point of view as well as my own. 

And as for the Art and Music, well, something needs to be there in this production that could ground it visually to people watching it. And since the acting and writing are the highly instinctive, highly personal spaces of experiment on my part, the structure in the story really comes from bringing about visible and memorable symbols to these structures in the protagonist’s head which would hopefully be able to provide an effective though line, as though it was one last look at that completed jigsaw puzzle, followed by pride in its completion, followed by a complete understanding of the matter that has been built, and a hope that someone else’s eye sees that same complete vision from the get-go, the one I took a long time trying to blur the edges for to be able to view.

JS: The production deals with intense themes and emotions. What inspired you to explore the psyche of a young woman in this manner?

JG: Everything inside me is telling me not to give a simple answer to this question. 

But here it is: I am a young woman with aspects of my psyche unable to express themselves in every community I have been part of. For the longest time, I saw myself be a critique of self-expression. I have not yet realized that it is a direct result of environment. Something in me wanted to own my psyche to the extent that there is an unhealthy level of ignorance to outside influences actually affecting it. 

There is a lot in this play I have really not attributed an identity to. It just happens to be the case as a result of a reality I have lived through. Example #1: I speak the truth as simply as possible. Example #2: I trust every human being in my life trusts me, which is obviously harmful, and a failure to face that is a reason a lot of my tendencies turned to uncontrollable habits, the effect of which is neurosis and psychosis. Example #3: I am convinced I cannot face any challenge because it is hard to stop perceiving myself as a child, even when everything I have lived through couldn’t be more adult. 

All of this, all of this and more is the case with a real 21-year old female, who is Indian, an immigrant living in Los Angeles. All of this just happens to be the case. And putting it up as realistically as narratively possible is the goal I have given myself. 

 Why? I don’t know. I just do it. 

JS: How do you balance the experimental and avant-garde techniques in your performance with the need to communicate a coherent narrative to the audience?

JG: I actually believe two conventionally experimental techniques made a coherent narrative possible in this project. 

Besides the sense in this pay really being brought in through the art and music, there are multiple metaphors and analogies being used. 

A small one is the protagonist’s most deepest, prized and private hallucination is called her baby, and the implications of that analogy being lengthened by showing the abnormality of this mother-child relationship as related to a real mother and child tells her and myself the kind of difference psychotic love can have from a well recognized, ‘real’ form of love. 

The other technique is the play being divided into the protagonist just trying to understand what it would take from her hallucinations, as well as her own self to move past them. She already resents her state of being and wants to get better, but is struggling to find a reason she can believe in to finally let go. In so many ways, she is trying to force a breakup, build many reasons to let go. This objective is a covert analogy to a real romantic relationship. It gives me as the artist a chance to show, through familiar themes, the struggle a socially frustrated person, who has created a dreamworld to escape reality, needs to face in the very deep and secluded layers of their mind. Even though failure always persists, a repetition of just trying to do it over and over again in hopes to get to the surface, in order to have little moments of realisation that they do live in reality, hoping they will have bigger moments in the future. That too, hopefully, not surely. 

Beyond that, Convenience is the way it is because an audience is expected. I leaned into the reality of things, but not enough to compromise structure, or dependence to ‘real-time’. If it were ‘real’, It would have been a list on a google docs with random statements listed after one another with unpredictable but sensible perspectives connecting each statement to the next. That is my happy place in reality. And if realism is taken to that kind of a level, that is an experimental idea in itself. I did not go that far this time, because I see a sense of discipline in doing the work. All the regular stuff an artist is just bound to get to to live their life through: getting inspired by things the sentiment of which could be carried forward in your work, and needing to consistently discover, 

If I would have chosen to keep it real, I would have not let myself discover anything else, and would have ended up being a stagnant person, not an artist. So, by virtue of needing to be part of a community of human beings throughout history who have created something through themselves, I have brought a huge layer of fiction to my experience of working on Convenience as well as the Audience’s experience of watching it. 

JS: How has your cultural heritage from India and your experiences in Thailand and Los Angeles shaped the themes and aesthetic of “Convenience”?

JG: Oh my. I do not have an accurate answer. I don’t know. It is all jumbled up. 

India - We all know about conservative societies. Discipline. I always did things a little too well. When it came to ignoring reality, I did that a little too well too. When it came to resenting a loved one for dismissing my dreams, and an all around symbiosis a relationship deserves, I did it a little to well. I worked hard in places I was not gonna find the tools to live a happy life in, and . Again, All of the above is true, and so is the fact that I grew up in an upper-middle class Gujarati family, and am very, very Indian. I am obviously here because of my upbringing and financial comfortability. I know English due to a lingering effect of Imperial colonialism and globalisation as a result. I read poetry and prose and drama in Cambridge literature and fell in love. There, a rare privilege of Indian culture. Literature. 

The cultural heritage my ancestors had been part of, being farmers under the British rule, not able to get by, and suddenly having the new man of the family work hard to get out of poverty. And everyone in the family living with the genetic instincts of ancestral suffering, passing it on to their children, passing it on to me, a girl who cannot sit still, brimming with desires. But also passing on the identity of an Indian girl. Your dreams do not matter, your simplicity is going to be mistaken for dumbness. Hence the poetry and stream of consciousness in Convenience. Hey, I have it from somewhere. All the choices of Protagonist is the result of being part of my upbringing. I do not understand every connection as yet and will take years to, but I will own it as soon as I understand it. And I’ll let people know. 

Traveling to Thailand was an experience in its own right. It was only 7 days and I forced it to feel like forever because I just didn’t want the trip to end. Before our performance, there was a time where we could not bang the roller skates too hard on the stage, otherwise we could have been disqualified. One boy asked our instructor if he could just use his knees to stop the skates from touching the stage after he did a body roll. The teacher angrily denied it. I questioned the teacher. I mean, him and I both were so unaware of the damage our consistent tiring dedication could bring to our body. In hindsight, he was wrong, but an even broader view of our lives show we work hard as it is. A mental illness, immense sensitivity to society. Still showing up to dance. Still going to class. And doing it all very, very well. That perfectionist is what the protagonist faces in creating her problems and living them to the best of her ability. 

LA-I was in acting school for 1.5 years. I faced a lot of difficulty owning the teachings, even though I had a certain muscle memory that I have discovered has retained a lot of the knowledge. That phenomenon, of wanting to learn and take in, but not being able to put that damn guard down, and eventually, but virtue of time, just ending up seeing it shatter in a moment. Yeah, I’m an actor. I don’t always believe it but I am. The protagonist doesn’t believe in a lot of stuff she says. And she believes in many conceptually absurd things. As I believed in the fact that I couldn’t learn. Ugh. Yeah, anyway, melancholy aside, I learnt acting and I am doing it professionally now. It feels good. 

JS: Your previous works, such as “Rivem” and “Jack and Lou: A Gangster Love Story,” span different genres and mediums. How do these experiences inform your current production?

JG: Rivem was an experimental multi-media short. We just made it, we didn’t have anything. I worked with multiple people in the process and noticed I have not yet come to terms with clearly grasping what I want from my own script from people who are involved, as well as myself as an actor. I am really taking a step back with convenience, seeing where it goes doing most of everything on my own, and not having as many people to be assertive in front of. Once I get more practice with going from writer to actor, the director in me will grow and let me know what I really want from my own work. And script wise, It was more abstract and I did not want anyone to make sense of it, not even myself. That has obviously changed. Thankfully, I want to make so much sense of everything I do now. And more in the future. In whatever way. 

And as for Jack and Lou, I was an actor on the set. I was proactive, I did what was asked. I cannot do what I ask of myself that easily. It’s wonderful to find moments of success. It’s healing to do that. I guess there is a contrast there but both experiences are similar in that I was really willing to do the work, no matter the role. 

JS: The use of adult themes and nudity is bold. What message do you intend to convey through these choices?  How do they serve the narrative?

JG: I remember a few years ago, I was at a point in my life where I would want to hide the most unique looking or sounding parts of myself from the world, and have absolutely no opinion on the more average parts. I wanted to hide my face and voice, but had no issues showing my body because, in my book there was nothing unique or questionable about it. I ended up letting a male counterpart in my Indian community know about this. He asked me to prove it. I tried my best to hide any sense of humiliation as I ‘proved’ it. I will not deny the shame I felt back then right now, but the stark contrast my existential indifference had to someone else’s want to take advantage has been a consistent theme in my life. 

The body does not matter to the protagonist. She won’t try to hide it, or show it. She will just wear the dress that makes her feel beautiful, and ignore every ounce of social reaction it has because in her book, ‘They should really be looking at parts of me I actually believe are my own. My body isn’t. It isn’t even part of the narrative.’ 

Can the people watching take the hint? Maybe, maybe not. But I believe my responsibility is to be able to give justice to the protagonist’s tendencies of creating problems to a whole new level and solving them on her own because she does not, just does not want to face already existing problems. And she feels guilty, so she creates societal problems too, i.e., negligence of modesty. Complex. I know. But it always ends up making sense. Some people live like this. Feels good to know I have about an hour to show it to people who do not. 

JS: Elaborate on the creative process behind writing, producing, and performing “Convenience”. What challenges and rewards have you encountered?

JG: A lot. But I’ll keep it short. 

I made sense of my own self as I read the script. I never thought I could. But I fully let myself and my perfectionism go away. And that is when I really began to understand the value of what I had ended up writing.  Exploring character physicality and how much of it I take from real experiences and how much of it I make up, and seeing reality and fiction mix, that is always beautiful. 

I have the most faith I have ever had in anything. I have the least expectation from others. I am just doing the work and not expecting the result. That is an Krishna quote from the Mahabharata. It’s a good book. 

Letting my perfectionism go is not always in my control though, and I am especially hard on myself when I cannot. I think about other projects I am writing about, or the fact that I need to learn French when I am in the middle of making the art for the play. The very themes I am tackling in the play can become a big reason I do not find value in it or am unable to be as proactive with working on it. And getting people to come watch it. How do I? Who wants to see it? Who needs to see it? Who will. Will they or won’t they? Will I sell out or will no one come? The imposter syndrome lingers. But also:

‘Too many mind.  

No mind.” 

-Nobutada, The Last Samurai (2003)

JS: How do you envision the audience’s reception to the intimate and personal nature of “Convenience”? What do you hope they take away from the experience?

JG: How the conventional identity of the protagonist connects to the story is a problem Convenience won’t tackle specifically. I am hoping my presence and life in the show is something the audience can connect to someone on the street, or themselves, or me as Janya. Anybody could be going through that. I am just showing it. 

As a result, whatever anyone watching it feels, I hope they take full onus of it, and know that they have had that feeling as a result of or despite their own experiences, and if they so wish, try to find parallels.

Other than that, It is just important to me to let it pan out the way it has to. Individuals are coming to take a seat, and hopefully they leave with whatever they picked up as a result of that individualism. I’ve just written the story, I have no desire to define it. 

JS: How do you see your work evolving in the future? Are there particular themes or stories you are eager to explore next?

JG: Experimental techniques are only a stepping stone to really be able to understand the space a character has in a society. I want to slowly begin discovering how a real tale that deals with societally stigmatized issues can take shape. My experience in India and having an Indian identity taught me how much self-loathing my community lives off of. I do not feel it is okay, but I need a creative medium to understand how it isn’t. Using my writing there is very important to me. 

But also doing the opposite. Anything conventionally senseless helping me make sense, and where it takes me to creatively pursue and show that series of experiences. I want to make that list I mentioned. I had written a 2 person 2 Act play named Subject exploring a relationship between the Protagonist of Convenience and her Husband. I want to make that play a reality, because that there is the perspective of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of it too, through him, and what she gains and loses as a result of being with him. Convenience is an attempt at understanding the protagonist better to really prep for Subject. 

I want to be an actor, working in more communal, more professional theatre and film work. In New York, on Broadway, on a street, who knows. I just want to meet people I can rehearse with for 6h everyday, maybe more, and not get tired. I am a romantic. 

I want to get back to training in dance, self-choreographing without the self-loathing. 

And as for the multimedia, the more I learn and self-contextualise, the more I will have to work with. And that is the goal. 

I just hope I never have that spear of a thought in my head again telling me to streamline, generalize, experiment, walk, talk anything against my own desires. I want to do whatever I feel is right and build a life out of it, whatever that looks like, and this time around, be able to face the hurt enough to let it revolve around in reality and not have it take the form of a compulsive dream. 

Performances are Saturday, June 8, 2024 at 9:00 p.m. (Preview); Saturday June 15 at 9:00 p.m.; Friday, June 21 at 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 22 at 9:00 p.m.; and Friday, June 28 at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $15. The Henry Murray Stage at The Matrix Theatre is located at 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, 90046. For more information, click here.