Every October a panel of two go on a pilgrimage of sorts. Scouring the country to find the best youth plays for the annual youth theatre festival — Thespo.
This year, not for the first time, I drew the short straw. It is a gruelling schedule. An orgy of theatre. Watching five plays a day for three weeks straight.
Each time I have been on the “Thespo Yatra” I return refreshed and excited about theatre. The ideas, the passion are all incredibly invigorating. But I hadn’t been on the panel for five years. Would I still feel the same?
I write this mid way through our journey. We (Kashin Shetty and myself) still have about 10 days left on our tour of duty, but it has already turned out to be a most rejuvenating experience.
Our first pleasant surprise was on Day 1 in Mumbai. It was late evening. We were led up a building’s narrow staircase in crowded Parel. And after climbing four floors, we found ourselves on a moonlit terrace. The group performing can only rehearse late at night, since their days are spent chained to their office desks. The play began and it was an amazing event. Their voices echoed across to the other buildings, and soon they had a larger audience than anticipated. Neighbours peered over their kitchen counters, kids pressed against their drawing room railings, all trying to follow what was happening.
Our next pleasant surprise was at the BITS Pilani Goa Campus, where we had been conscripted as judges for their annual cultural festival. There is a place where four stairwells meet at a grassy quadrangle. This green square was the venue for the street play event. The audience sat on all four sides of the action, and the soft turf allowed the actors to dive, fall, roll and jump without danger of getting hurt. For people walking the corridors of the main building, to suddenly chance upon an oasis of performance was thrilling.
However, the space that truly humbled us was in Nagpur. Once a thriving centre where poets and scholars such as Harivansh Rai Bacchhan were regulars, the Rashtra Bhasha Bhavan is now only a shadow of its former self. The wonderful library is no longer as vibrant and the ground floor has an air of being something from a forgotten era. On the left is a small sign saying “Sabhagriha”. We climbed the steps watchfully, not quite knowing what to expect. There was just a room. Once a classroom, but now a performance space. The Bhavan’s chief Dr Suresh Babu Agarwal has empowered Rupesh Pawar and his young enterprising team to manage this off beat space. Modelled on the lines of Pune’s Sudarshan Hall and Mumbai’s Awishkar, this little theatre can seat about 60-70. Wings have been erected and a few lights rigged up. It is far from ideal but it has a soul that most other more formal spaces lack.
What’s more is that it is home to almost 60 young performers who come there regularly and work in the plays. Initiatives such as “The First Bell On Stage Festival” (which premieres the work of first time directors) has drawn participants and audiences alike.
Rupesh proudly tells us about how after having just two people at the opening show, they now have to open the door to the terrace so people can peer in from the makeshift “standing room section”.
Theatre seems to come up in the most unexpected places. Fighting regular battles against odds such as funding, institutional support, and space is never easy. But every now and again someone stands up and makes it happen. It keeps reminding me of something I read once:
“A man walks into the room and says a line.
The man becomes an actor; and the room a theatre.”