Provoking Thought

“The play has a language of alienation. The characters are mere caricatures,so the audience is forced to think,‘what is happening’,or ‘what is he doing’,” says Saraf. Every now and then,the cast breaks into a song-and-dance routine in the middle of a scene. For instance,in one scene the trader is contemplating sacking his servant,but before he can do anything,the IPL tune begins to play,and the cast breaks into a bizarre jig. “This is supposed to help the audience distance themselves from the story and think about what is really happening. I’ve kept Brecht’s original play intact,only adding contemporary touches such as the IPL tune,” says Saraf,who has worked on the play in collaboration with Kelyane Bhashantar,a magazine that supports translation of foreign

literature into local languages.

Together they also staged the enactment of another translation,of a short story by Swiss playwright Peter Bichsel. The IPL also made appearances here. In the translation of Bichsel’s work,IPL cheerleaders narrate the story about a man who has no curiosity about the world around him. “He isn’t interested in how the electricity in his house works,why it’s dark,or what is there in the world beyond his doors. I’ve used the story as a comment on how lethargic modern society is,and how it does not have a thirst for knowledge and does not question anything,” says Saraf.