(From top) Atul Kumar started the concept of theatre-at-home; A still from Chairs, which Kumar directed and staged in one of Mumbai’s plush living rooms; Pushan Kripalani has taken his plays out to alternative venues

Theatre personality Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee recently staged the musical, Songstress, to resounding success. And no, he didn’t stage the play in a routine, ho-hum auditorium but in Aicha, a cutting-edge lifestyle store in south Calcutta. The audience included the store’s salespersons, buyers and walk-in customers.

Chatterjee says: “The aim is to bring people to watch theatre in informal settings and to make the overall experience intimate.” So last November, the Weavers Studio, a textile design studio in south Calcutta, came alive with Chatterjee’s dramatised Bengali reading of Raja Oedipus and Antigone.

As theatre buffs try and reach out to a greater number of enthusiasts, they are relocating the theatre scene from stuffy auditoriums to other exciting venues. On the one hand you may just catch a brand new production in a garden or an abandoned mill/factory (free of cost) and on the other, you could be part of an exclusive 50- member audience watching a play in someone’s living room, a coffee shop or at a restaurant.

Theatre director Sunil Shanbag says: “Since there aren’t too many new venues to hold performances, we have to find them. This also makes theatre more appealing — not just to the aficionados — but also to the common man.”

For director Quasar Padamsee, the best way to make theatre work for GenNext is to take it out of auditoriums. He says: “It should be an interactive and novel experience.”

Quasar Padamsee (top) staged Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace (above) at the Horniman Circle Gardens in Mumbai

Padamsee first took his plays out in the open in 2007. That’s when he staged Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace at the Horniman Circle Gardens in Mumbai. The play was performed to a thumping response and later it also toured Hyderabad and at the Secunderabad Club. Serious theatre-goers and anybody who cared to stop and watch were welcome at these performances.

Padamsee recalls: “At the Horniman Circle Gardens, the audience was seated on rugs, literally within touching distance of the stage. And in Hyderabad, we were performing with planes flying overhead as the venue is close to the airport.”

Horniman Circle Gardens was also a choice venue for Shanbag who staged the popular Hindi play, Cotton 56, Polyester 84, and Mastana Rampuri Urf Chappan Churi, right there in the open. The plays also stole a march at Bandra Promenade. Shanbag’s audience included curious onlookers, street-urchins and regular theatre buffs.

Shanbag recalls: “At Bandra Promenade we had to cope with the gusty sea breeze and at the Horniman Circle Gardens we had to deal with traffic noises.”

 

(Top) Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee believes that coffee shops and bookstores make great venues for staging plays; Cotton 56, Polyester 84 (Middle) by Sunil Shanbag (above) played at Horniman Circle Gardens

Chatterjee, Padamsee and Shanbag aren’t the only ones who have a penchant for staging plays in alternative venues. For actor and director Pushan Kripalani too, it was the desire to experiment with new spaces that led him to establish the Industrial Theatre Company in league with other theatre directors, Rehaan Engineer, Nadir Khan and Karan Makhija.

Their productions like The Maids and Hayavadana have been brought to audiences in Mumbai’s buildings and gardens. Kripalani says: “Unusual venues help achieve an actor-audience connect.”

Meanwhile, director Atul Kumar, artistic director of The Company Theatre decided to bring the experience into people’s living rooms. He launched the concept of theatre-at-home in which the group performed short plays every fortnight in some of Mumbai’s plushest drawing rooms.

In this format, the hosts offer their homes and furniture for an evening of drama that’s staged to a small audience of about 30-50 guests. Kumar says: “At the end of the performance, a hat is passed around and the audience donates liberally. This helps to cover some expenses.” Today the group boasts of a databank of over 100 homes in Mumbai that have hosted performances.

Supper theatre at restaurants is also alive and kicking. Says Sonali Sattar, owner of Grasshopper, a Bangalore restaurant: “We’ve hosted productions by well-known names including Atul Kumar, Rajat Kapoor, Konarak Reddy and Ajay Krishnan.”

Nandini Rao and Ranji Davis of Yours Truly Theatre have held their plays in diverse venues like office campuses and old age homes

Cut to Nandini Rao and Ranji Davis, the couple who started Yours Truly Theatre in Bangalore five years ago. Davis recalls their first play, Spooky Tales, a ticketed show, which was played out in a three-storey building in Bangalore. The entire building was lit up with candles and lanterns to give it a spooky look.

Another play — Bhagwan Dhundo — was staged by them in a labour-camp on the outskirts of Bangalore, with tin-houses and just one source of light as the backdrop. Labourers formed a large part of the audience.

Actors and directors say that bureaucratic delays and red-tapism in booking theatres for their performances is pushing them to look for alternative venues. High rents of auditoriums are also cited as reasons for groups to scout around for newer spaces. “The rent of a good auditorium with the right infrastructure ranges from Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 per performance,” says Shanbag.

Nandini says: “The aim is to reach out to people who don’t have an opportunity to watch plays and to make theatre more exciting and entertaining.”

Photos by Gajanan Dudhalkar