Children move in a circle to the beats of the chenda. As the rhythm picks up, they change their steps and gait. There is laughter, camaraderie and some fine acts during a routine theatre session at Rangaprabhath Children’s Theatre complex at Alumthara near Venjaramoodu. Later in the day they listen to stories, songs, and poems, do exercises, learn voice modulation, play games et al.
Obviously, there is more to children’s theatre than mugging up dialogues and getting the expressions right. It is a different scenario altogether, say theatre practitioners and exponents in the city who have been working with young talents for long. As World Theatre Day is observed on Sunday with various activities centred on drama, MetroPlus looks at how thespians of the stage take theatre to the kids.
The summer vacation has set the stage for children to hone their skills and also have fun in the meantime. Children’s theatre is not just about training them in acting or teaching them a particular play. It comprises many activities, including music, dance, fine arts, exercises and the like. Rangaprabhath Children’s Theatre, Abhinaya Theatre Group, A Place for Theatre Performance and Research (APT) and Nireeksha have a module wherein all the above are incorporated.
“The aim of children’s theatre is not just to create good performers. It is about personality development, improvement of communication and socialising skills, developing leadership qualities and helping them overcome their inhibitions. The training taps the potential of the children, which helps them discover themselves in many ways, irrespective of gender,” says D. Reghoothaman, founder president of Abhinaya Theatre Group.
He adds: “You should never try to teach theatre to children. They should learn it on their own and this learning process starts with theatre games. For example, we make them play a game and the one who loses it has to dance a few steps. Initially that child might be reluctant, but when every one starts doing it, inhibitions vanish and a performer emerges.”
Groups such as APT have designed the training sessions in such a way that it would help the children in academics as well. “We have a two-pronged module. One is Theatre in Education, where we work on how theatre can help a child in his academics, covering aspects such as observation, communication, concentration and presentation. After that we move on to pure theatre, where we tell them about a play, its components, such as script, direction, and props. This is done through examples. For instance, we tell them a story and ask them to make a play out of it. As they improvise the situations and come up with a storyline, we tell them how to adapt it for the stage,” explains Sam George of APT.
After all imagination runs wild in a child’s mind and it is left to the teachers to channelise it, believes K. Sasikumar (Asok Sasi), a faculty member at Rangaprabhath, an institution that has been active in children’s theatre for over four decades now. “A child’s mind is like a white paper and we fill it with images, characters and situations and let them create a world of their own. As they bring it on stage, they have to have a rhythm and that’s why we give importance to music and rhythm in our sessions. Children have better sense of rhythm than adults,” he says. The institution holds sessions every weekend and the total strength comes to around 100, with children coming from places in and around Venjaramoodu. “Though the classes are for those aged six and above, we have small kids as well. They enjoy being part of the hustle and bustle. Childhood is that delicate period of a person’s life and the knowledge they gain at this age go a long way in moulding their character,” says K. S. Geetha, secretary of Rangaprabhath Charitable Trust and daughter of K. Kochunarayana Pillai who established Rangaprabhath.
In children’s theatre, the focus is usually on the group and not the individual. “Through theatre, children are taught how to move and work together in a group. That gives a sense of belonging and make them confident,” says E. Rajarajeswari, co-founder of Nireeksha, the women’s theatre group.
The feeling of togetherness is important especially when there are emotionally disturbed children. “We have been working with youngsters with many personal problems. Some come from broken families, some are economically disadvantaged, some are weak in academics…Theatre becomes an outlet for their angst and pent-up feelings. Over the last two years, we have trained 56 children,” she says. An overwhelming experience for the group has been training 27 girls of Nirbhaya home. “Some of them were so traumatised by their past life that it wasn’t easy to get them out of it. A couple of them were violent, others were scared, some restless...But the magic of theatre is such that they are now totally different individuals, who are confident enough about their future. We also train the children in kalari because they need to be physically strong as well,” Rajarajeswari adds.
However, theatre troupes and practitioners are disheartened by the lack of patronage for children’s theatre. Stages are few and theatre workshops and sessions have been confined to summer vacation camps. But the veterans refuse to let the curtain fall on such theatre-based camps and activities. The show must go on.
Kids’ speak
Theatre has changed them for the better, say Nandana Sreekumar and Amal Gopinath, students of Rangaprabhath. “I came here to learn dance, but shifted to theatre after I started watching the preparatory sessions. The exercises refresh us; training sessions have brought about tremendous changes in my body language. Now I am confident about facing a crowd, my public speaking skills have improved and, above all, I could travel to many places to perform,” says Nandana, a student of class ten.
For Amal Gopinath, a Plus Two student, theatre is a stress-buster. He has been a theatre buff from the age of eight. “I was very reserved and didn’t have many friends. But after coming here, I have been able to overcome that. I never miss out on the class, even when I have exams!”
