A hospital intern tries to explain the meaning of lockdown to a patient just out of a coma. An anxious mother sitting thousands of miles away from her daughter tries to understand her depression.
A spunky cable TV repairman visits the home of a fussy, Covid-paranoid couple. An exasperated cop tries to convince people to stay home.
An isolated hipster rethinks his life choices… Set against the background of the current lockdown, these are some of the themes that make up the third edition of One on One—Unlocked, a new play by Rage Productions.
Shot on an iPhone, the digital play consists of 10 monologues—five each in English and Hindi—eight-10 minutes long.
Rage’s Rajit Kapur says of the initiative, “In order to be faithful and true to theatre, we followed the brief of one actor, one camera, one shot.”
However, coordinating rehearsals over WhatsApp and Zoom was not easy. “It was weird to direct remotely over phones and video chats,” explains one of the directors, Nadir Khan.
The digital transition in the realm of theatre has been made possible by Paytm Insider.
With its initiative, Front & Centre, the ticketing platform aims to bring the physical experience of theatre alive, online.
Though the platform plans to focus on regional languages, at present it features plays in Hindi, English and Kannada.
It kicked off the initiative with Quasar Thakore Padamsee’s play Every Brilliant Thing. Performed by Vivek Madan, the play touches on the fragility of the human mind.
Front & Centre is not the only one leading the move to the digital format. Before the lockdown upset the apple cart, Kaivalya Plays was scheduled to stage Álvaro Menéndez Leal’s Luz Negra.
Rather than abandoning production, director Gaurav Singh took along his actors to Skype. This independent theatre collective streamed the play live. The performance boasted 700 visitors.
In the case of Sanjay Kumar, founder and director for Pandies’ Theatre, Zoom became his companion in these trying times.
The group performed Till the Day I Die live on Zoom, battling the usual technical glitches that came with it.
Anurupa Roy, founder of The Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, was also quick to adapt and move online. In the last four months, the group has conducted shows, workshops and even a fundraising festival successfully.
Boasting a cast of some of the finest actors—Aahana Kumra, Gagan Dev Riar, Joy Fernandes, Neil Bhoopalam, Seema Biswas and Veronica Gautam—One on One—Unlocked combines theatre and technology.
The stories have been directed by eight well-known directors. Anand Tiwari, who is making his directorial debut with Raashan, a piece that perceives the lockdown from two different points of view—one, through the eyes of someone living in a slum, and another, through the eyes of someone living in a society building—says, “The problems that both face though different, have many commonalities. It talks about how this situation has turned into a leveller across strata.”
Performed by Kapur, it depicts how walls and boundaries of class distinctions have crashed because of the lockdown and ironically how alcohol is a connecting factor. “It took a pandemic to talk of the same thing in different ways,” adds Tiwari.
The pieces have been written by nine talented playwrights—Adhir Bhat, Anu Menon, Ashok Mishra, Hussain Dalal, Purva Naresh and Raghav Dutt.