Rani is a bright teenage girl in Mumbai: playful, dreamy, rebellious and desperate to escape what seems to be her destiny in the sex trade. But her mother, Chameli, is determined that her daughter carry on the family tradition. We meet them during the days leading up to Rani’s professional unveiling in writer-performer Dipti Mehta’s beautiful and devastating Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan. What kind of mother could choose this for her daughter? A ferocious mama lion, who was sold by her own parents at 13 and who is trying to give her daughter the best life possible considering her limited choices. All five of the play’s characters—they span a range of age, accents and genders—are wondrously portrayed by Mehta, who uses monologue and dance to guide us through their world of plans made and deals struck. Even as it invites the audience to take a hard look at the life of sex workers, Honour seems to stare back at us, as though to ask, “Hey, American, does this make you uncomfortable?” You bet it does, and we’re the better for it.—Roberta Lipp
[Note: This is a review of the production of Honour in the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. The play returns for an encore staging at Baruch Performing Arts Center in February, 2018.]