The audience gets involved in the plays showcased at NSDs ongoing The Graduate Show The glass foyer of the Tagore Theatre has become a platform for interaction,exploration and experimentation. On the stage and off it,there is room for many people who line up to get into The Graduate Show,a package of six productions by final-year students of the National School of Drama (NSD). The plays range from Tota Bola and Papa Laden to Ferrous and Zero One,where young directors use their personal experiences to flesh out their plays using technology and space that move beyond the stage. Every performance is not merely for the stage; we want to step down and know our audiences reactions. We want to strike a chord, says Sajal Mondal,who has put together Tota Bola,a play based on Kannada playwright Chandrasekhar Kambars Jokumarswami. Although the play is set in a traditional Bengali milieu,Mondal has attempted to tell the story of our times the politics of landowners,politicians,and a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. To cut down the original text to an hour would have been merciless, he says. So he chose to re-interpret it in a manner that the audience will have to to sit back and ponder. After the play was staged,the audience even gave feedback,including a suggestion to remove a smoking scene from the play,since it set a bad precedent for youngsters. Modal obliged. Tripurari Sharma,associate professor at NSD,agrees that the scripts have become more customised to the Indian context. These young directors are sifting experiences and presenting them in a sophisticated way, says Sharma. Ferrous,an interactive performance conceptualised and directed by Vishnupad Barve,was packed. Created in seven different enclosures,the performance was themed around land mining in Goa. The visitors were involved through interactive games where they struck land deals,wrote blogs,and visited the construction sites virtually. The play is open to interpretation and it is for us to see,imbibe,take along or leave, says Anuradha Bose,an English teacher who chose to stay for back-to-back performances of Ferrous. Zero One conceptualised and directed by Abheesh Sasidharan is about the experiences of life and death. Having worked with various mediums of theatre,Sasidharan says the endeavour was to get us closer to life and people,in spite of being on stage. The actors and the audience face many situations and experience varied reactions towards life and death through words,gestures and reactions. The festival is on till July 30
