The stage is fully lit. Yet actors behave as if there is a blackout. They bump into each other. They fall down the stairs and talk to walls.
It’s a romance-cum-mystery drama unlike anything you have seen. While the pandemic has ruined a lot of our year-end travel plans and get-togethers, there is something to cheer up about.
Hyderabad-based theatre group and acting school, Sutradhar, will be streaming the recording of its uproarious Hindi play Andhere Mein on December 26.
The buffoonery in the play comes from a novel technique called reverse lighting scheme. Here ‘light’ means ‘darkness’, and vice-versa. First applied in English playwright Peter Shaffer’s 1965 farce Black Comedy, Vinay Varma, the founder of Sutradhar, believes this technique hasn’t been used in any other theatrical production. In fact, Andhere Mein has been adapted from Black Comedy by Pratap Sehgal.
The transposition of light and darkness lends fun as well as meaning to this 90-minute drama, directed and produced by Varma. He says, “At an allegorical level, we don’t know what’s happening behind our back—who is back-biting us. In this case, the friend has told the protagonist where he has kept his house key. And what does the protagonist do? He takes his friend for granted and takes away his furniture in his absence. His intention isn’t bad, though. He only wants to impress his guests. But it’s a breach of trust.
It’s keeping someone in the dark.” The story revolves around a young sculptor who steals some antique furniture from his closest friend’s house, who’s away on a holiday. This, to decorate his bachelor pad to impress his future father-in-law and a Nawab. But before his guests can arrive, a short circuit plunges the house in darkness, and worse, his friend returns from his vacay untimely.
This sets off a night of unexpected visitors and mistaken identities. Since the play is also a take on relationships, it’s timeless. The audience will be able to relate to it even 50 years from now, Varma quips.
But for the actors, it has been a challenge. During the four months of rehearsals, actors would walk blindfolded or walk with eyes open but in pitch darkness to heighten their sense of space.
“Actors are taught to maintain eye contact and respond to visual cues. In that sense, Andhere Mein is an antithesis of theatre shows. Here, actors can see each other but have to ignore and do their own thing,” explains Varma, who opened Andhere Mein in Hyderabad in 2018. So if you are in the mood for a fun evening post-Christmas, you know where to log on.