Sartak has a dilemma. But he doesn’t know what to do about it. Well, neither did the show’s creators actually. Being Sartak Majumdar is abstract, random and might run around your head in circles. But that is the best part of the play.
Originally intended to be a five minute monologue, the play, after several tweaks and adjustments, is now a full-length production with three actors.
Performed by Mumbai’s The Mannequins and produced by Chennai’s Stray Factory, the play intends to be a satire on the media. But it might not be all that straightforward says director and scriptwriter Karan Shetty. “When we first staged it, nobody understood what it was. Even some of the actors who auditioned for the roles left halfway through because they couldn’t understand the script,” laughs Shetty.
Shetty wrote the play four years ago when he was in college. “It started off as a monologue but we performed different versions of the same play. At NIT Trichy it became a two person piece,” explains Shetty. On the National Law School’s stage, it turned into a three-person play. While they ended up winning at NLS, it was at Thespo that they got criticism.
“The judges said it looked random and was all over the place. They actually told me that a playwright was something I wasn’t cut out to be. I took it up as a challenge,” he says.
After numerous changes, the play now a more evolved version of the original, claims Shetty. Fresh from the Kala Ghoda 2013 fest and Thespo 2013, the play takes a look at the repercussions of information being distributed without filters and sent out in wrong dosages to wrong crowds.
“It operates on the principle of what could happen when you are influenced by such information. What you watch ends up making you who you are, right?”
Right. So watch, be influenced (or not), and think things over. Most of all, Shetty says, enjoy the experience.