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And then there were nine
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A distraught Ravana on the brink of a nervous breakdown: imagine if you had 10 opinionated heads. ROHINI MOHAN has a rollicking time at the end of a workshop
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Nothing was overly rehearsed and the performers had had a lot of freedom. — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.
THE ATTENTION-grabbing way to start this article would be for me to say something like "Amateur playwrights are not so amateur anymore." It is still rare to get a show that (a) tells a compelling story (b) passionately, (c) and is genuinely entertaining.
You know you could reasonably expect all three of the above when venturing to see a play by Mahesh Dattani. But this time, it was his nine protégés who had the same riveting effect on the audience. You wouldn't believe they held the theatrical quill in their hand for the first time.
Nine stories in one evening. Written and performed by members of Dattani's three-week long workshop in collaboration with the reputed art institute Kalanjali. A little forum to showcase immense talent. Brought to you by Oxford Bookstore to coincide with the launch of Dialogue, an in-house forum for playwrights.
The show almost had the feel of street theatre — no backstage, no glitter, no make-up, no special lights and no larger-than-the-story celebrity actors. Just story and dialogue. To top it all, there was an eager audience that had to spill over the stage area to accommodate themselves. Thankfully, theatre lovers are forgiven easily.
One by one, the first-timers walked the stage, shyly introducing their plays in as few words as possible. Then came on the actors, breathing life into nervously written dialogue. Madhu Natraj Heri's Space in Between that kicked-off the show, was typically woven together like a well-choreographed dance. Expressions and fluid body movements clearly scored over words in her play.
Not one to hold back on words, Santosh Samuel, another workshop playwright, had the audience cracking up at the very title of his play: Ravana's Dilemma. No, he wasn't talking about Sita or burning down Lanka, but of the poor demon being stuck with 10 heads! It was an idea that occurred to Santosh when his son wondered aloud how Ravana combed his hair. Presenting: a distraught Ravana on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Imagine if you had 10 opinionated heads that loved to chatter.
Ravana lamented over losing debate competitions because he had too many points of view; he scored poorly with girlfriend Sita because every one of the heads wanted to woo her; it took ages to brush mile-long rows of teeth and every decision making process became a rowdy parliamentary session. A lady in the audience almost rolled down with laughter when Ravana said: "Pssst... I even have a secret fantasy of kissing 10 girls at once!"
Hemant, a software engineer, wrote From Noose to Lariat, in which an Indus king had resorted to euthanasia for his son. Asked if a story of such a grave nature and Vedic names with more than 10 syllables would go down well with a larger audience, Hemant said: "I have addressed contemporary issues like class differences, cronyism and democracy that have relevance today. The princess in the play is also part of the governing council because I wanted to show women being involved in government."
Another set of scenes by Shruthi Sridhar, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, was an adorable comedy of errors, where a demanding god sets two lazy cherubs on a task of creating unlikely lovers on earth. As a result, a woman with tummy worms and a man with body odour fall madly in love. "It might be funny, but it happens a lot!" said onlooker Deepa, who couldn't stop gushing over Shruthi's obvious talent for the funnies.
What made this group of people want to script plays? "The more bored you are with your existing profession, the more creative you get," laughed Gayathri, who had a bickering couple going round in circles with their unsolvable arguments. Nandini, who wrote Dinner Conversation, said Dattani went through each of their scripts, suggesting ways to tone down melodrama and contradictions, but never touching the essence of the scenes.
The way the actors had the audience eating out of their hands, you'd think they didn't need any more training. But Sunil Bannur, a professional actor, had this to say: "This workshop was a tool gathering exercise. We are exposed to various directors, styles, scripts and audiences. It broadens our skill base."
Nothing was overly rehearsed and the performers had had a lot of freedom. Most actors preferred this kind of a set-up because it gave room for spontaneity.
This type of simple storytelling is blissfully rejuvenating. It reminds you why they invented theatre in the first place. So here's a modest proposal: let's take all the money producers plan to spend on making glitzy movies where the protagonist is actually the foreign locales, and use it to script new stories. Dialogue and applause will follow.
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