Arthur, Souptic, Payal, Taranjit and Ramanjit

After shooting for Deepa Mehta’s film Heaven on Earth in Toronto, it’s London calling for city-based theatre director Ramanjit Kaur.

Ramanjit’s theatre group Creative Arts has bagged the chance to stage their latest production Crab Soup at the Theatre Science Festival from July 13 to 18.

Theatre Science is a London-based organisation that explores ways in which theatre and science can come together. So, when a Theatre Science team came looking for stage artistes in Calcutta two years ago, Ramanjit and her troupe came up with the idea of staging a play on AIDS.

Directed by Ramanjit, Crab Soup delves into the “deeply embedded hypocrisies among Indians when dealing with AIDS”. It’s an emotionally-charged play based on a scientific breakthrough.

“At first the scientific concern did not interest us,” says Arthur Cardozo, who wrote Crab Soup. “But what really got us going was a scientific project we had stumbled upon in 2006. It’s about a microbiocide extracted from the Indian mud crab to create a contraceptive gel for women. It immediately gave us a perspective on amalgamating science and art”.

Crab Soup tells the story of a young small-town couple whose relationship crumbles when the husband tests positive for AIDS. The story traces behavioural changes in the man and also his physical degeneration.

Of the four characters, Vajinder Kumar plays the husband, Taranjit Kaur the wife, Payal De their maid and Souptic Chakraborty a friend.

Looking at the scientific slant, it is the crab that forms the leitmotif in Crab Soup. “Crabs as survivors is the metaphor used for the person suffering from AIDS. They can hold up in spite of live in deep muck,” explains Arthur.

While Arthur calls the play futuristic, Ramanjit defines it as a solution for women’s empowerment.

“It is futuristic because the contraceptive gel the wife talks about using is still in the pre-clinical stage in reality,” says Ramanjit, who is known for her site-specific productions like Is Job Charnock Coming to Town? and The Merry-Go-Round.

To complement the sombreness, the set designed by Sanchayan Ghosh will bear a “stark” look. “The colours in the background border on pale white for a sanitised feel. The costumes I’ve designed are quite simple. Mostly moss greens and muddy browns in keeping with the play’s theme and crab metaphor,” explains Ramanjit.

After their performance at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Creative Arts will participate in a series of workshops and seminars involving artistes and scientists from the UK.

“We have also been invited by Tara Arts, London, to stage a show and conduct a two-day workshop with them in July,” smiles Ramanjit.