Encounter Part

Directed by Parnab Mukherjee,the play tackles the question about life in a pall of fear. “How do people survive in a climate of fear?” asks Mukherjee. An expert in alternative theatre,he has been conducting theatre workshops with people at Jamia Nagar for two years. At his workshop after the Batla House encounter,the foursome did away with their surnames and travelled to the less-frequented areas of the city — the homes of Burmese immigrants at Kailash Colony and Vijay Nagar near the North Campus where Manipuri students stay. “Two weeks ago,the workshops turned into a well-coordinated effort to produce a play. The boys’ narratives are their personal opinions,I don’t intrude in their narratives,” says the director.

The 55-minute play has an edgy format to suit the topic. It has three parts — in the first,the four Jamia Nagar residents tell their narratives in separate monologues; in the second,JNU student and actor Kaustuv Basu does a silent solo act on the theme of terror; in the third act photographer Sreedeep takes pictures of the performers and audience and morphs them before streaming them on screen in real time. “Even as the actors recount their horrors,people can see their own faces projected on screen,” says Sreedeep,as Basu quietly wraps a toy gun in crepe bandage until it resembles a corpse. Here,almost everything takes on an image of violence and trauma.

Point-Encounterpoint will be held at Cafe Mocha today. Time: 6 pm. A repeat show will be held at JNU on August 19. Time: 9 pm

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