The Diploma Productions, presented by the NSD graduates, was truly experimental in form and design. Even the content of some plays was daring. For instance Kneel Down based on Amy Yamada’s play and Lick My Feet presented by Sarika Pareek dealt with women who are working at an S&M (sadist and masochist) clinic. They specialise in giving pleasure through pain.
The opening scene has the three girls wearing lab gowns and miming a scientific experiment. As the play begins they take their gowns off to reveal minimalistic provocative dresses and boots with stiletto heels. The looks are more like street walkers though the director insists that they are not prostitutes but they discuss sex and talk about their intimate and personal lives.
The bell rings, indicating a customer has come. One of the girls goes off stage and returns shocked, describing to other girls what the customer wants. He wants pins to be stuck on his penis and a pencil shoved down the opening. The man comes on stage himself and repeats his demand. The girls take him backstage and treat him to his demands.
One can see a blurred picture of what is happening backstage through the double curtains. There is a lot of blood as the customer screams in pain. The girls ask him if he wants them to stop. He refuses to stop. One by one the girls come on the stage to get toilet paper, which is part of the stage decor. The three girls’ acting managed to keep the interest alive till the end.
Next was Jeetral Hansda’s presentation Fevicol, which asks a moot questions. Do we consume to produce? Or do we produce to consume? Then he goes on to ask a relatively absurd question “Produce what and consume what in turn?”
The play offers no answers to these questions for it takes the story of an unwanted guest as its premise. And nowhere is Hansda‘s other concern validated in the script; the displacement of indigenous people from their lands without any plans to resettle them. The third aspect of his concern self-sufficiency finds no echo in the script either.
The “mehmaan” (guest), who forcibly enters the family domain, is a creature without any human consideration. On the night he arrives, he deprives the family of the sheet on which a couple is sleeping. Making inroads very astutely, he is soon able to orchestrate the lives of the poor farming couple.
However, when it comes to the land and its conversion into industrial space the tillers of the land see red and are obdurate about any changes in the land relations.
Even though the guest is offering them more in terms of finance the couple cannot take the facts in, and manage to get rid of the unwanted guest who remains a stranger; only a symbolic representation. The actor playing the guest was very good and became the comic hero of the play.
Miniature Moment Of Life directed and designed by Bimal Subedi, takes one for a ride literally, as each moment is played in a different performing space. So we hurriedly scamper from one auditorium to the other quite harried by the senseless exercise. I did not see this beyond a quirk. The first moment was in the Bahumukh. A couple sit uncomfortably across each other wearing bazaar bags on their heads with a cutout for speaking. Apparently the couple is breaking up due to infidelity. There is indication of tension in their bodies as the woman keeps repeating her dialogue which is matter of fact, barely concealing the tempest below.
“The content if these short plays have common areas. They all start with an argument on very trivial subjects which the confronting parties refuse to understand and hence stonewall each other. Tension builds but the predicted climax is never reached. Fragmentation occurs innumerable times during the plays. An objective view of the whole situation makes one ask the inevitable question, “Do I dare?” Yet nothing is of real consequence. (From the director’s note). The plays have more existential flair then one expects in the beginning. I did not understand the contradictory last part of the note. In fact the rest of the note was equally confusing for me. Take this sentence. “We are trying to explore a new dimension where we are impacted by the whole visual of what happens, rather than an imitation of the situation as it is.”
The second moment was much more communicative. The play is about a funeral ceremony. The dead man is revealed through the conversation, actions and objects the funeral director uses. The improvised actions and gestures show up the silent dialogue between the funeral director who gives the last touches to the dead man with the consent of his relative. The funeral director uses a doll to ask silent questions of the relative who replies in tiny gestures of his hand. The piece is beautifully crafted and well-performed by Thoudam Victor Singh and Bendangtemsu Walling.
The third miniature was at the Abhimanch theatre. This play is about two individuals involved in a road accident. We hear the cars crashing and two people a male and a female come out speaking with each other quite casually.
According to the director they are quarrelling about the cause of the accident and deciding who is more guilty of the two. Besides this they are also supposed to be commenting on each other’s lifestyle and through that on their culture and class. Unfortunately this last bit did not register on my radar. So the idea of reading the text with reference to racism did not occur to me. The finale was a video installation of six moments captured from different parts of Delhi. Quite ordinary looking, the installation did not merit the haul from the Abhimanch to the front of Bahumukh where the installation was kept.