Fitting Form

Akshara Theatre on Baba Kharak Singh Marg came alive with the strumming of a guitar,the whispers of a flute and much singing and dancing on Friday night. Coat Tales,directed by Pauline Furlong and written by Anushka Ravishankar,gently lead the viewers to a wondrous world,where men spit out birds and phoolwaalas serenade princesses.

The role of the writer is often undermined in a play,but with Coat Tales,Ravishankar plays a lead role from its conception to its staging. An author of more than a dozen children’s books,Ravishankar,49,knows the power of the quirky and the hold of the funny. In the spirit of the oral tradition,she draws from folk tales,and adds her own spin to them. She,however,also retains parts of the original,allowing the reader/viewer to recognise a familiar narrative. In Coat Tales,she draws from stories of Karnataka,Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan and dips into the Panchatantra and Vikram aur Betal. With her experience of writing picture books— a very successful venture was her I Like Cats — she says she finds it easy to write for theatre. “It is about seeing the visual and then working the text. You cannot repeat what the action says,” says the author,whose At Least a Fish (Scholastic) will be launched in Delhi next week. The book chronicles the adventures and imaginings of two young children,who ask for a puppy,but get a fish instead.