Shardul Bhardwaj
Bhaagi Hui Ladkiyaan by Aagaaz Theatre Trust just completed its last performance in Overact Studios, Aram Nagar, on its first Mumbai tour. The four powerhouse actors aged 16 to 19 are lounging about on the sofa right outside the studio in front of a fan. They have just delivered a performance with a kind of zest that has left audiences enthralled and alive in the intimate space outside the Overact Studio. In accordance with the customs of theatre watching, audiences are chatting in groups and all are in a state of amazement and awe.
A significant portion of the awe emanates from the fact that they just saw four young girls from Nizamuddin Basti, New Delhi, perform a devised piece about gender, religion and the idea of ‘self’ versus the ‘other’. While these ideas are complex and nuanced, the general conception is that it may be daunting to critically comment upon a play where the narrative seems so authentic and ‘real’. Several audience members talk about how in the hands of ‘actors’, this very piece can never sound so genuine, and rightfully so. The piece involves personal stories of the actors’ everyday life in Nizamuddin and is spoken through words and body movements. The deep camaraderie and sense of respect is shared between the actors — Nagma, Nagina, Zainab and Jasmine — and director Dhwani Vij, who, at no point, shows the actors’ lives to be a thing of pity.
When Vij first began directing Bhaagi Hui Ladkiyaan, she started by attending a workshop on gender conducted by one of the actors in the play. Bhaagi Hui... is not a piece where an outsider enters a space to make a play through a process of teaching and workshopping, but a collaborative process of exchange and learning. Aagaaz’s actors are in constant discussion, workshop and training.
The authenticity and immediacy — words that one would often hear in conversations about the play’s performance — also stem from recognition of the difference in conditioning and class recognised by the ones who started the Trust in 2015 and the students from Nizamuddin Basti, who joined it later. The ongoing battle of the group seems centred around being able to find a middle ground. This they can only manage by questioning each other on various aspects of performance, like rehearsal timings, space, nature of after-rehearsal celebration, etc.
This set up is so alien to an average audience in Mumbai or New Delhi that it becomes difficult for them to talk or move beyond the set definitions of actors vs non-actors, real vs unreal. The four actresses delivered their 16th performance at Overact Studios and it must take some practice and technique of an ‘actor’ to keep it fresh and going.
Aagaaz’s work is not new to the theatre world in India but is undoubtedly a step towards creating a dialogue between personal domestic spaces and society. It is giving birth to actors, directors, light and sound designers who are getting trained to think about their community-based spaces outside of conventional theatre spaces. It’s hard not to question oneself after watching Bhaagi Hui Ladkiyaan and what is truly remarkable is the way one is affected by the story-telling with the kind of finesse that can rightly come under the banner of Modern Theatre Performance in India.
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2H0OH7j
via Today’s News Headlines
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