BENGALURU: Most people in the world would agree that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is one of the biggest events for anyone pursuing the creative arts. It is held every year in the Scottish capital and runs for almost a month, making it the largest arts and media festival in the world. Bengaluru’s Mallika Prasad Sinha’s one-woman play, Hidden in Plain Sight, won the prestigious Infallibles Award for ‘Best Show’ in 2021. The latest rendition of that play, Hidden in Plain Sight v2.0 Digital Edition, which is the edition that won the coveted award, was performed in the city on October 21 and 22 at the Shoonya Centre for Art and Somatic Practices.
Sinha feels her play was the culmination of a 10 year journey, starting way back in 2012. “This play, which began about a decade ago, essentially is an exploration of the actor’s craft and collaboration with a writer to create a piece from the actor’s craft. The story is about four women in the city ‘who are unmoored from society’ and are intertwined by fate. All four characters are played by myself. After a few shows, we shut it down in 2013. During the pandemic, I took it up again as the piece actually deals with isolation,” says Sinha, who also wrote the play with playwright Ram Ganesh Kamatham.
She feels the second rendition of the play is completely different from the one from 2012. “So, the first time around, it was a piece that was put up on stage. But for this second version, I really began to investigate what does it mean to be a theatre maker at a time when venues were not available. The main question was to explore what happens to a performer in the absence of an audience. So the latest version is completely different as a theatrical experience. The most exciting difference was the engagement with the audience in this new format. As a production, except the script, everything is different from the original version,” shares Sinha who has been a theatre maker since 1993.
She mentions that the response to this show has been ‘astonishing’. “I have staged this show from a time when all these platforms like paytm insider or bookmyshow were very new. Most hadn’t started putting out performances online. So this piece has seen lots of ‘firsts’. A wonderful thing about the digital moment was that I had audiences beyond Bengaluru. The positive response has surpassed all my expectations,” she says adding that she has always believed the city has always been highly appreciative of avante-garde work, whether it’s theatre, writing or music.
“Bengaluru has a long history of people who have pushed boundaries in art. It may not be very visible to many at the moment because we’re all struggling with ways to go forward. The nature of the city constantly changing and one can’t just rely on nostalgia anymore. But I will say that if you look at this city’s history on a longer timeline, you would see that this city is definitely a place for experimental work,” concludes Sinha, who is in the process of a new production that is scheduled to come out by March 2023.