All of us have gone to auditoriums and amphitheatres to watch theatre performances. But what if the theatre comes to one’s home ? An experience like this would be highly engaging and interpersonal, something Kuljeet Singh, founder of Atelier’s Theatre Company is striving to achieve with his recent venture ‘Home Theatre’.
“After a lull of more than a year, we wanted to go beyond the virtual form of theatre. I also realised the geographical constraints in a place like Delhi. Someone from say, Vikaspuri would not want to come all the way to Mandi House to watch a play. So I thought why not take the theatres to the people rather than asking them to come,” said Singh. Under Home Theatre, Singh and his team—it only comprises four people—perform baithaks (social gathering) at different venues, with a focus being on performing at people’s houses.
The performance is inspired from the Dastangoi format of storytelling and seeks to deliver a tale that is engaging and in a sense, divine. “Couple of years back I was practising Dastangoi and I had that sense of dastan performances and how to go about it. Then two years ago, I developed a dastan around Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s life (that they performed on Saturday). COVID-19 and the idea of performing a minimalist kind of theatre thus, led to this initiative,” Singh said.
A spiritual experience
After four baithaks—their first performance was at India Habitat Centre (IHC) on November 24— Singh and his team executed a fourth baithak on Saturday at Gunpreet Kaur’s home in Vasant Kunj. Kaur, who had watched their first performance at IHC, invited her relatives and neighbours over for Saturday’s baithak. “ I saw the show first at IHC and it was just beautiful. Today, last year, I was diagnosed with cancer and this was one occasion I wanted to do shukrana (pay gratitude) and there would be have been no better way of doing that than being with my family and listening to something so mesmerising like today’s baithak”, Kaur shared.
The baithak on Saturday, titled ‘Dastan-e-Guru Nanak’, delivered the story of Guru Nanak Dev, founder of Sikhism and outlined his life and his teachings. The dastan written and directed by Singh was performed by actor Rupank Sharma and singer Raghav Arora with the help of their production coordinator Shiv Shambhu Singh. “This is not the general theatre that you do. I am just trying to be a messenger of what Guru Nanak Dev Ji has said. Whatever I say, comes from the heart. When you are narrating such a big message of love, it is important that it comes from within which is why this is not a general theatre performance sbut ibaadat (devotion),” shared Sharma.
With Home Theatre, Singh and his team are not only reviving the culture of baithaks but also going beyond the conventional boundaries of theatre, a field that has been gravely hit because of the pandemic. Their performances seek to build a spiritual experience for the viewers and the result is thus, one-of-a-kind, deeply profound and hard to forget.