It’s such a pleasure to perform theatre in the manner it is meant to be performed, felt, experienced,” said Tathagata Chowdhury, Founder, Theatrecian, as he gears up to present his two latest productions at Delhi’s Akshara Theatre on Sunday.
Titled, The Red Hot Bombay Lovers and The Lockdown Lover, the plays are to be presented in association with Gurgaon-based art performance company The Cacophonee. While The Red aims to explore dark complexities and non-stop exuberance, 'Lockdown Lover' is a gender-bender psycho-thriller performed and directed by Tathagatha Chaudhary.
The theatre is shut because of the pandemic, but the cafe is doing well. “The restaurateur gets a writer’s block when he comes across three women and he manages to get material for his writing. The character is called ‘J for Joker’. Yes, the pandemic times are majorly responsible for the script,” says Chowdhury.
The actors are from The Cacophonee and Chowdhury said that the preparation was a quick endeavour. “The challenge was to get used to each other’s rhythm, style. It’s hardly been forthright but am glad we connected well.
They are immensely talented, very aware, and intelligent, and sensitive. Also, I have a teaching job now, so to travel every day from Pathways World School, Aravali to Delhi/Gurgaon for rehearsals was challenging.”Chowdhury has represented India in the Southeast Asia Theatre festival, in 2014 and has been conducting theatre workshops across India and the globe.
According to him, his actors are well-versed with technology and easily pulled off online format of theatre, “We did Jean Paul Sartre’s play, There’s No Exit in our adapted online format and then followed it with Ionesco’s The Lesson, Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence!The Court Is In Session and Neil Simon’s Chapter Two. The stories were given a novel treatment and adapted to suit a half an hour online experience.”