SUMMERS ARE cool when you are in school. The summer winds bring along vacations and various options for children. I decided to follow up on what is there on the plate for kids in the theatre world. In the process, I found myself surprisingly staring at, and then completely put off by a print advertisement about a theatre workshop.
The advertisement meant to invite children in the age group of eight to 16, seemed to be treated with the same dangerous apathy that is evident in notices such as tenders for construction work by some heavy-weight organisations. The surprise turned into shock when I saw that the advertiser was the nation’s most premiere institute of theatre, the National School of Drama.
It makes me wonder about the vision and mission of the workshop which starts with such non-creative approach. It also makes me question the ability of this workshop to stimulate the process of creative thought in children. What conclusion can one draw about the spirit of the workshop organisers if they treat communication about the workshop in such a lousy manner, devoid of all creativity?
Director Arvind Gaur blames it on the overall approach of the NSD. “The National School of Drama has evolved into a festival management institute. Reaching out to general public has never been the priority of the NSD. Like any other well-funded body, it is bound to organise certain events every financial year and it just wraps them up with a careless attitude. Desire to use creativity to appeal to wider mass is not in its agenda,” says Gaur.
Agastya, a 12-year-old who was looking forward to this workshop, sums his impression of this advertisement in a one-word expression, “draaaaaaab!”
“I was very enthusiastic about the workshop, but I found the advertisement drab. Some pictures or imaginative boxes would have made it interesting. I might not join this workshop now, as it does not look interesting any more,” says Agastya.
Another potential participant, Urvi reacts to this piece of communication, “It’s dull. There is only one mask in it. They could have made it more appealing.”
A Gurgaon-based advertising professional refused to identify it as an advertisement.
“The aim of any communication is to reach people in an interesting way, to land in the minds and hearts of the target audience with the message,” he stresses.
So, the NSD authority, which permits the publication of such a depressing piece of communication, is either unaware of the interesting ways to reach children or simply apathetic to them? Or is it the process of shedding away responsibility by doing what is required without any basic effort? Or is it purposefully avoiding mass engagement?
Next time, when we discuss about the declining interest of the next generation in theatre, we can reach the roots of it.
A quote from Dave Meslin’s TED talk titled “the antidote to apathy” sums up the situation for us. “How often do we hear that people just don’t care? How many times have you been told that real, substantial change isn’t possible because most people are too selfish, too stupid or too lazy to try to make a difference in their community? I propose to you today that apathy as we think we know, doesn’t actually exist, but rather, that people do care, but that we live in a world that actively discourages engagement by constantly putting obstacles and barriers in our way,” says Meslin in his talk.