Colour it Theatre ! Edition XI: May 2017
A NOTE FROM TEAM THESPO Hey! Almost didn't see you there! Did you get those printouts I asked you for? Oh wait, you're not here for The First Call work, you're reading the Thespo Ink! It is all so jumbled up, I tell you - with so much going on! We've got The First Call in Bombay on the 17th plus there's The First Calls in different cities AND in colleges! So many new people have come in and are already putting in so much for Thespo. We couldn't be more excited and grateful! Putting together the Ink in the midst of all this has been a different journey altogether. This month, we are also extending to a blog, working on design and ideas and putting it all together! We also plan to archive all our old articles on the blog, so do go check it out! Meghana Telang is all WOKE in Young Perspective, while Gaurangi talks to Yugandhar Deshpande - one of the city's youngest curators and playwrights. We talk to Anubhuti, a Delhi Theatre Group currently making waves with their street play, A. Thespo 18 participants make their presence felt in the new year too. Sindhuri Nandakumar talks about Creases In My Saree, a play that found international acclaim in Sri Lanka and Canada and Shivraj Waichal drops by for a Quick 8. There's also in-house weirdo Soumya with a quiz about popular musicals - so pause, guess and have a laugh! Let us know how you like issue! Meanwhile, we must go back to travelling across cities and colleges, packing production kits and welcoming all the newbies and the oldies! So..... see you soon?
Am I Too Woke for This? Woke /wəʊk/
Urban Dictionary User 1: A state of perceived intellectual superiority one
gains by reading The Huffington Post. Urban Dictionary user 2: Getting woke is like being in the Matrix and taking the
red pill. You get a sudden understanding of what's really going on and find out you were wrong about much of what you understood to be truth. It’s an exciting time to be a theatre-goer in Bombay (said several people at different times, each convinced they were right). Especially as a person who sees politics in everything, watching a socially relevant play is not only common, but almost inevitable. “Moral of the story” theatre, or utterly allegorical theatre is how theatre was re-introduced to Mumbaikars, way back when theatre became an activity for upper-class Indians Without drowning in goody-goody attempts to reform the world, almost every play I’ve watched in the recent past has addressed a social issue, and attempted to challenge prejudice .
In the past year alone, plays I’ve seen have tackled mental health (psychosis and degeneration), casteism, sexism, communalism, state repression, fascism, alternate ,gender identities, racism, ageism, homophobia – phew!
Only a handful of these plays actually named the practise they were addressing; discussing it openly seemed to make it a “social-issue play”, an adjective no one wants attached to their work. And yet, without a doubt, these plays took a stand, clearly making a statement, one way or another, ensuring the audience would agree with them by the end of the show. One would imagine that my political heart would skip and jump out of the theatre. Not quite.
Instead, my obsessively sociological brain and heart squirmed as a Brahmin man defines casteism while the Dalit man remains mute as ever. My eyes widened as homosexuality and a trans-gendered identity seemed interchangeable. Rape phobia quickly turned into the “manipulative woman” trope, psychosis was revealed to be the punchline, crossdressing became the “comic relief”, and my heart dissolved into an acidic mess in my stomach.
Each attempt at social change, come with two servings of self-importance, and half a serving of research. Half-baked truths, innately regressive mind-sets had seeped through so many of the plays I watched, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t find it in me to rise with my co-audience for a standing ovation. I wondered whether it was just me; was I the only one uncomfortable with the fact that an office drama had one woman on stage, that too for 2-3 minutes, and she turned out to be a Vishakha-guidelines-abuser? Was I oversensitive in seeing an overtly Brahmin narrative describe the breaking-of-shackles by a Brahmin man of a Dalit farm labourer? Could it be that I was being “too Sociology types”, when a wedding-play decided to walk a path where neither the audience, nor the character is clear about the difference between a trans-woman, a cross-dressing man, and a homosexual cis- man? Quite likely..
It’s more than a little believable to me, that I am more sensitive to these issues than most people; that I demand too much correctness, one that is not necessarily the path that is seen as correct by the theatremakers themselves. However, what perhaps left behind the worst taste of all, was the utter belief that each show was a pathbreaker, one that is changing the world, and the Mumbai theatre scene.
Certainly, they are bringing some change – to have plays that discuss these topics is a huge step, and I suppose my ultra-woke self will just have to argue away, until we reach the next level of political correctness (by which point, some snide little snot will insult me and my old-school ways). Until them, I am resigned to the fact that I might just be too woke for this. - Meghana Telang
PICK A PLAY
AND RUN !
Yugandhar Deshpande is a delightful young Marathi playwright from Pandharpur, a tiny pilgrimage town in Solapur District, Maharashtra. At just 25 years of age, he’s already writer six plays, been in a writer’s workshop with the Shafaat Khan, Pradeep Mulye and Jayant Pawar. He’s had plays open at Thespo, Kala Ghoda and the NCPA’s Centerstage Festival. For those you having visited the Hive, he was also one of the people responsible for it becoming an alternative venue for the performing arts. Of course, none of this was visible in his demeanor when I sat down with him to talk about his penchant for certain geometrical shapes in his narratives, and his obsession with the idea of ABSOLUTE.
Gaurangi Dang (GD): You grew up in a small town. What was home like and how did you end up in Mumbai? Yugandhar Deshpande (YD): At home there is Mom and Dad, and I have five older sisters. My dad was a bank officer in Bank of Maharashtra and mother is a housewife. I was in Pandharpur till my tenth grade, and by then three of my sisters had already gotten married. After that I went to Pune to study. I took admission at an engineering college in Pune, but left it midway though my first year because I wanted to study the arts. My father wanted me to finish my degree so the next year I took admission at DMCE, which is an engineering college in Navi Mumbai. I did three years of that and got really frustrated, so I refused to go to college in my final year.
GD: So how did you get involved with theatre? YD: It started at my engineering college SSPMS in Pune. I didn’t want to go to class and I had heard that there was this session happening where people were jamming together, so I went for it. Then I started helping with backstage and production and kind of just stuck around. Then when I came to college in Mumbai, a bunch of us got together and started doing theatre just to keep us occupied. It was all very random, but by then I knew that I enjoyed doing theatre more than I did attending class. So we registered for an inter-college competition and I wrote my first play CHAUKATH AANI PATANG. GD: How did you start working with Awishkar? YD: I had heard that they were conducting a writer’s workshop. There was an audition process for which you had to send in a script. . I sent in AVYAKT, which was selected for Thespo Fringe the previous year Then we had an interview, and about six of us made it through that into the
us made it through that into the workshop, which went on intermittently for about a year. It was through this process that BAIL MELAY (Bull is Dead) was created. The play is about a small town couple that moves to Mumbai amd their struggle to understand and achieve modernity l the while grappling with their insecurity of the voice of tradition in their heads. Bail is symbolic of what they have chosen to leave behind. GD: What came after BAIL MELAY? YD: After that was AGDICH SHUNYA (Absolutely Zero) at Kala Godha and ABSOLUTE at Centrestage 2016. Agdich Shunya is the story of two drinking buddies that start off at the same place and how one moves forward but the other doesn’t ABSOLUTE is about people who are in search of their respective ultimate realities. I think I wrote it at a time when I as a person, was having trouble connecting with the people around me. I loved them and I also knew that they loved me and I desperately wanted to connect with them, but I just couldn’t.
GD: Is that what led you to curating? To help people connect with something? YD: It all started when I heard about The Hive from a friend of mine. Back then there weren’t a lot of spaces like that in Mumbai. I fell in love with the space and ended up spending a lot of my time there. There I met Sudeep and he told me that he wanted to do theatre at The Hive. I knew people that did theatre. So I got involved and that’s how I started curating different kinds of work. After working at The Hive for a year, I realized that there were so many smallscale productions that were looking for venues to perform. When Hive opened, there weren’t a lot of alternative spaces like it, but now you have spaces like Tamaasha, DSM, and many cafes and bars. My objective was to get the play across to as many audience members as possible.
Since then Anuja and I have started our own company called Theatre Across and we now curate work for The Drama School, Sitara Studios and Afterclap in Thane. We pick a play and try and give at least a run of five to six shows at different kinds of venues across the city.
- Gaurangi Dang
Page Flips Writing a play has always been a daunting task to me –it has not become easier with time. A playwrighting teacher at university read a draft of my short play once and told me that I was “vomiting exposition like a novelist.” I initially thought it was a compliment, dreamily imagining myself giving the acceptance speech for the Booker Prize in 2030, but a quick look at her face corrected my understanding of her intentions. In 2014, I had just graduated from university and moved to Canada, where my family lived. While puttering around somewhat aimlessly through this new and uncharted phase, I always kept coming back to theatre – volunteering in theatre festivals as a stage hand, auditioning for various roles around the city, and eventually, daring to respond to calls for script submissions. One such draft, of a play entitled The Creases in My Sari, was chosen for workshopping and a staged reading at a festival hosted by Alumnae Theatre , a vibrant theatre company whose presence in the city spanned many decades. One of the producers of the festival, Carolyn Zapf, adopted my play (and along with it, me
and served as my dramaturg, sitting patiently with me as I revised the play about a dozen times. The story that I chose to tell was a result of my experience of moving to Toronto in 2009, less than two months after the Sri Lankan civil war ended. I was born and raised in Sri Lanka in a somewhat apolitical Tamil family. My family, unlike thousands of other Sri Lankan Tamils, did not leave Sri Lanka because of political persecution, but because they wanted to pursue economic opportunities in the “First World.” We moved to Scarborough, home to many Sri Lankan Tamils, many of whom fled the war. In various corner shops and bakeries
, I would see pictures of the recently killed Prabharan, leader of the Tamil Tigers, glaring down at us from walls, adorned with flowers. I was shocked and stunned because in Sri Lanka, support of the Tigers was rarely expressed publicly. So conditioned was I by my Sri Lankan upbringing that I thought I would be arrested for walking into such a store.
, a Sinhalese man and falls in love with him, to her mother’s disapproval.
All of this is set against the backdrop of the end of the Sri Lankan war, during which time Toronto saw a variety of protests and road closures because of the masses of people opposing the Sri Lankan government’s treatment of civilians. After the reading in March 2015, I took the hard copy of my script and put it away, The Creases in My Sari tells the story of promising myself not to look at it for a year. Maheshwari, a young woman in her twenties whose mother fled to Canada from By the time 2016 came along, Alumnae Sri Lanka when she was still a baby. Feeling Theatre told me that the play had been chosen for a full staged performance as part detached from her Sri Lankan identity , of their FireWorks Festival. Mahesh meets Chanaka
After revising the play and handing it over to the director, I mostly stayed removed from the rehearsal process because I had moved to India by that time. I excitedly waited for friends and family to share their feedback with me, and I could never fully fathom the fact that all this effort was going into a play that I had written.
The Creases in My Sari, as a piece of dramatic
.
writing, is not something that I am proud of. There are some plot holes, and as an ambassador of my culture and experiences, I am always wary of appropriating my own culture or “exoticising� it. But the actual act of writing and developing with it all the tools and resources that I had has been one of the most important experiences of my life – it is intensely humbling, and is a testament to how the creative mind is fluid and is constantly reinventing itself. It has shown me that it is okay to be embarrassed by our own work because that embarrassment will be an agent of change, proving to ourselves that we are dynamic, changing human beings, making sense of the world in newer and clearer ways as we navigate our way through it. - Sindhuri Nandakumar
Namaskaar, Sasriakaal , Adab Theatre has always prided itself in being a medium that makes a difference, that is unafraid to speak the truth. And Delhi’s Sri Venkateswara College’s theatre group Anubhuti is no stranger to this concept. Focusing largely on street play, Anubhuti has achieved success in both providing entertainment through theatre, and making a social impact. We spoke with the President of Anubhuti, Anish Bhat, who told us more about the art of street play, the challenges that his group has faced during the year, and their well-acclaimed play, ‘A,’ that has bagged many accolades and fame since the year began. SVC’s Anubhuti has made quite a name for itself this year and last, seamlessly winning 80% of the competitions in which they have participated, and placing in the remaining 20%. Anish Bhat, now in his third year at SVC, proudly told us that Anubhuti was revived in college when he was in his first year. This means that within a mere span of two years, the dramatics society has reached the level of veteran theatre societies, garnering recognition and respect for themselves everywhere they went.
‘A’, Anubhati’s well-acclaimed street play that has received lots of appreciation and prizes in 2017, is one that makes people question the rigorous categorisation of sexuality and gender. Anubhuti displays the socialisation of a human being right from birth, by their family, school, society etc, all of which pressurise the once innocent child to become, in Bhat’s words, a “kattarwadi insaan”. They are later challenged by a narrator, who also provokes the audience to break free from the shackles of heteronormativity. Bhat told us that the ideation of ‘A’ was no easy process Their brainstorming session began in July 2016, during which each of the 25 member society had to
bring their own ideas to the discussion. Each idea was discussed in detail, before narrowing it down to Sex Ed, and then finally broadening the topic to Sexuality. The brainstorming, researching and writing period lasted for two months -and Anubhuti was ready with the play by mid-September. Ultimately, it was strong communication and coordination within their society that induced teamwork, guaranteeing all-round success. When asked what it was about the form of the street play that inspired them to speak up about sexuality, Bhat said it is one of the most direct artforms that reaches people. The taboos around sexuality interact with and obstruct people’s daily lives, and ‘A’ mirrors this reality by bringing drama onto the streets. The street play is a useful medium to speak up, be heard, and acknowledged. Bhat stressed that contrary to the stage play, in a street play, the performers go to the people. Anubhuti has performed at colleges, on the streets, at NGOs, in urban as well as rural areas. People of all classes, sexes, ages, and races are therefore audience to this play
Street plays reach a wider range of people, people who do not necessarily have the means to attend a stage play. Information about the violence committed by tabooing and restricting sexuality reaches all people, and enables them to think and question. However, Anubhuti has interacted with the curse of censorship, which Bhat claims to be a challenge to the form and content of street plays. While street plays are meant to be explicit, and blatantly honest they are often obstructed by various organisations, political groups, and even college authorities. Anubhuti has also been stopped in the middle of performing ‘A’, simply because certain groups objected to the content. Yet, they remain unfazed. Bhat holds that it is most important to speak the truth, to continue conveying the message they intend to.
Anubhuti did not fear of censorship, and so far, have won most of the competitions in which they participated. While winning competitions is important, Bhat says that it is more gratifying when the social message they are conveying is heard, and responded to positively. ‘A’ portrays homosexuals, transgenders, and others who have been victim to the taboos that govern society. Bhat told us that Anubhuti received personal messages from transgenders and homosexuals who watched the play and connected with some of the scenes.
“They were just happy that someone was talking about this” says Bhat. For Anubhuti, this is what motivates them to fight obstruction and continue doing what they do. For the rest of the year, Anubhuti is ready to explore more territories in theatre through two productions -- one stage play, and one street. Bhat says they are excited to continue doing what they do: spread positive social messages through entertainment. It is satisfying to know that youth theatre today remains professional, well-intentional, and unafraid to speak up. - Saranya Subramanian
GUESS THE MUSICAL
QUICK 8 With Shivraj Waichal What is one memorable goof up on stage? We were doing a children's play, based on Charlie Chaplin. One of our actors couldn't control his laugh, So everyone on stage cracked. The play was stopped for half minute If you turned into an object one day, what prop would you be? A pipe. I've always wanted to play a character smokes a pipe. I like Whatthat is one memorable goof watching other actors use a pipe on up on stage? stage too. Even design wise, it has a lot of elegance. What do you enjoy better - a solo play or sharing the stage? I enjoy sharing the stage with the team One thing you miss from college theatre The emotional bonds
If you had to give up one of these forever, what would you give up Mime or Monologue? I will give up monologue. Personally, I'm not somebody who likes to talk. Real theatre comes from the silence. Once spoken, what was personal immediately dilutes. And the art of mime is so abstract in its sense, there are no limitations. Do you prefer being directed or directing yourself? Directing Myself Which aspect of theatre do you like the best? Acting If you could be on a Charlie Chaplin film set for a day, which film would you pick? Modern Times. I've watched it a million times. So much happens in the movie. The sets are huge and the drama is all dialled up. And who would want to miss Charlie singing in gibberish!
Shivraj Waichal took the Marathi inter-collegiate stage by storm a few years ago with a one-act called Ulagaddi which he wrote, directed and starred in. Then he went on to act in a Marathi TV romcom and a webseries, never letting theatre out of his sight. So his interactions with mimes and one-acts continued before he arrived at Thespo 18 with a solo play and took home awards for direction and acting yet again. To sum it up, Shivraj Waichal is a bossman
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(Started in 1999) is a platform for any and every young person under 25 who is interested in any and all aspects of theatre. Except for the age limit, Thespo firmly believes in including youth from all parts of the world, all fields, all language groups and all art forms who share a love for theatre. Over the last seventeen years it has grown from a one-evening event to a year round movement comprising of an annual Festival, monthly shows at Prithvi Theatre, theatre training programmes, workshops, site-specific performances and much more for young theatre enthusiasts.
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2017 A YOUTH THEATRE MOVEMENT