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`Smell' from today
A scene from `Smell'
SMELL, AN English play, comes to Bangalore after a successful run in Mumbai. The play evolved as a result of a playwrights' workshop conducted by Royal Court Theatre and British Council, we are told. It was one of the nine plays chosen for premiere as part of a festival called Writers Bloc at Prithvi Theatre and at NCPA in Mumbai.
In Bangalore, the play will be staged for three days from Thursday at the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore. The production of Smell is unique because it was born of a highly active collaboration between theatre companies based in different cities: The Company Theatre in Mumbai and Kimaaya of Bangalore. The director, Atul Kumar, is a big name in theatre circles and the actors are all well-known faces in Bangalore. The action emerges from a process Atul Kumar is known for: thorough improvisations and exercises of the imagination and intuition of the actors themselves. Atul worked with two separate casts to make sure that at any given time, one team would be ready for performance. Team one performed at Prithvi, while team two was at the NCPA Theatre. Both shows, we hear, were full. In Bangalore, along with the performances, there will be a seminar and workshop to generate new ideas in English language theatre.
Smell, according to reviews, is a very unusual combination of theatre, abstract movement and installation art; a look at men and women and what they can do to one another; and a play about madness and control, violence and despair, dream and reality.
Enacted by three principal characters — two women and one man — , it may perhaps be quite unlike what Bangalore has seen in terms of theatre productions. The sets, the technicalities and the actual script and performance, are all likely to be different.
Kimaaya Productions was founded by Ruchika Chanana and Deepti Sudhindra, and The Company Theatre by Atul Kumar.
Kimaaya produced in Bangalore the highly controversial Vagina Monologues for the first time in India as well as the successful evening of short plays, Two Bites at the Same Cherry.
By K.S.
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Life
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Thiruvananthapuram
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