What does a sundal seller, a litti choka vendor, a momo entrepreneur and a kachori man have in common? An endless treasure trove of stories. Listen to these vibrant tales in Stand on the Street of Aruna Ganesh Ram’s Visual Respiration. Love, ambition, desires, attachments, hypocrisy and opinions on worldly affairs... there is absolutely no dearth of subjects for these loveable, chatty people. The performance, originally commissioned for the Serendipity Arts Festival, will switch from Hindi and Tamil to English. A devised performance that offer an experience of immersive theatre, it demands the spectator to be as much a creator of meaning as the director herself.
Excerpts from an email interview with the director.
In one interview, you talk about an “activated audience willing to author their own experience”. How do you make sure your performance makes the spectator also equally involved in the process?
The audience can choose within the performance. They can choose how they interact with the space, the distance at which they place themselves from the performance and from each other. They can interact, smell, hear, touch and taste street food from various parts of India. There are no chairs. They will move through the space crafting their experience. The narratives that we have crafted will remind them and get them to reflect on their street food memories.
How has your vision of theatre as an art form transformed after experimenting with immersive performative practices? Where did the first inspiration or urge come from?
Honestly, in the beginning, after being introduced to immersive theatre, I took to it because of how new and refreshing it was. When I started creating work, I realised that I was devising immersive theatre through play and exploration. So I was playing with narrative, movement, spatial design and images to create moments for the audience, with the audience. In this process, I realised that theatre became a space for connection, shared discovery and conversation. Suddenly, everything that I crave for in life was happening through my work as well. That's what made me continue my explorations and experiments with the form, process and the audience.
In this play, food, flavour and smell are a prominent presence. How do you think food aids performative rituals?
Food is the most immersive experience for at once it engages all the five senses. So the challenge was more in how we look at food within the performance context. Initially, Chef Manu Chandra gave us some ideas on how we could design the culinary experience in a way that all kinds of tastes were captured in the performance. We cook the food ourselves in the performance — this is also a way for us to connect with the process and the audience. More intimacy is built in the exchange.
Could you give us a peek into the process of devising this play — the rehearsals, scripting, playing with the idea of food and so on.
Our process started with interviewing over 250 street vendors. Their stories and conversations brought our process to life. Masks give the narrative a universal feel and physical theatre to experience their hardwork and relentlessness. When we started out, we had no idea how the performance was going to turn out. For us, it was important to retain the authenticity of the narratives and to ensure that we don't make caricatures out of real people. While working with masks, that balance is tricky and we hope we have done justice to real stories of the street.
How did you see the four actors evolving through these rehearsals?
The performance is a duet. Two actors play 10 characters. The performers finding their masks was a big part of the process. They took time to build a relationship with their masks to bring them to life. We took support from practitioners such as Yuki Ellias and Anitha Santhanam to work the masquerades. Half masks allow the performer to play with voice and body. So finding the right narratives for the right mask was equally exciting. And yes, the performers sweat it out behind them and in that labour, they find themselves as they perform the moments from the lives of these street chefs. They’ve immersed themselves in the process, right from conversing with the vendors to bringing their enterprise to life, through their bodies. And yes, we did eat a lot of street food along the way.
The play will be staged at Rehearsal Room, Mezzanine Hall, Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, Chetpet, on August 10 (2.30 pm), August 11 and 12 (2.30 pm and 5.30 pm).