KOCHI: Art has always served as a medium for protest against political and social issues. Expressing solidarity with the ongoing protest against the alleged anti-public policies announced by the Lakshadweep administration, Thiruvananthapuram based theatre group, Kanal Samskarika Vedi has come up with a novel online theatre performance titled Lakshadweepam on Clubhouse, the audio chat platform from Google.
Actor Kannan Nayar played an important character in the play that explored the concerns of Lakshadweep island natives. “Clubhouse has chat rooms for various discussions based on various topics and includes people from all walks of life. We were scouting the potential of connecting with like-minded people apart from those on Facebook,” he says. Over 300 people tuned in for the performance that was held on Sunday.
Elaborating on the preparations made, Hazim Amaravila, director and scriptwriter of the play says they were overwhelmed by the response. “We planned the play among ourselves in just two days. Four artists and I are Thiruvananthapuram natives, so we practised online too, using a provision in the app.
We changed our profile photos in the chat room to our character names so that the audiences can identify our roles when we speak,” says Hazzim who was also the director of the famous play, Bhagavante Maranam. The 25-minute-long play Lakshadweepam opens with a newsroom discussion where news presenter Arnesh (Amal Krishna) is engaged in a heated discussion with island spokesperson Sumeshji (Anand Manmadhan) on the issue.
The discussion is interrupted by two fishermen from the island, Salim (Kannan Nayar) and Ahammed (Santhosh Venjaramoodu) who get emotional and share their fears and frustrations.