Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry’s Dark Borders will open on May 7 at the Rock Garden

Dark Borders is especial, for it is after more than two decades that Chowdhry is opening her play in Chandigarh. Also, after years, she is not working with the professional actors from her repertory, The Company, but young, local actors. “I like the energy they have, I was inclined to work with a fresh group of actors, but didn’t know how to. Moving them away from theory and towards practice and chiseling their creativity was a challenge, and the working methodology was a long, exhausting, but a fulfilling journey,” said the director.

Based on five stories of Manto, the play looks at various dimensions of violence, be it from the perspective of gender, displacement, lost homes, broken relationships, loss of identity… For close to five years, Chowdhry has been exploring the work of Manto in her plays, be it Bitter Fruit, Naked Voices… Dark Borders also incorporates moments, scenes from the series of elaborate workshops that were documented and made into the film Anatomy of Violence, directed by Deepa Mehta.

“Certain issues, ideas from the workshop were given theatrical inputs and used as part of the play,” adds the director.

For the last many years, the director has been working without a pre-existing text or script, and instead improvising and collaborating with her actors to evolve a production. No beginning, middle or end, Chowdhry loves the challenge of looking at an idea and developing it with the circumstances and energy of the actors. “Manto was a storyteller, narrator, and his work is not dated, it is relevant to all times, and yes, it requires a different sensibility to transform the text into performance and dramatise it. His politics was about humanity, spirit of humans; he talked about the voiceless, marginalised and did not tell polite stories. We have not used the complete text, choosing fragments, which can be stand-alone references and nuggets of insight for the audience.”

The play will be staged at Chowdhry’s favourite venue, The Rock Garden, with which she has special connects, “it is the first time that Nek Chand won’t be present there and we all will miss him,” said Chowdhry.

Dark Borders will open on May 7 and will be staged till May 11 at the Rock Garden, 7.30 pm.