Journalism of Courage
It takes a lot to make one smile and even more to turn that smile into a laugh. From slapstick comedy to intelligent humour,theatre personality Aarvind Mital will conduct weekend comedy theatre workshops in the city starting September 3.
After directing and playing the lead role in Fiddler on the Roof,for which he trained school students,Mital has taken the business of teaching stagecraft a step further. There’s too much seriousness around. The idea is to get more people to enjoy themselves as they learn to make other people laugh, he says.
When to use humour is as important as how to be humorous. It boils down to comic timing. Acting is as important as reacting; this action-reaction constitutes the factors of comic timing. Whether it is situational comedy,slapstick or simple comic lines,poor comic timing will kill the attempt to tickle one’s funny bone, he says. And for this,he insists that people need to learn to control their body language and facial expressions.
Apart from the above basics,the workshop will also train participants in miming and pantomime. Mime is a beautiful form of theatre. It comunicates the emotions of the story with hand and body movements and various props on stage, he says,adding,Pantomime,on the other hand,is a reaction to sound and music using body gestures.
(The workshops will be held September 3 onwards at Saroj Apartments,Sahaney Sujan Park,Lulla Nagar)
