The loud laughter emanating from inside makes one curious. Walking up a flight of stairs, one comes across a group of 40-odd people, standing in a circle, laughing heartily. In their midst stands theatre person Bisharad Basnet.
The director of the Acting School of India, Mumbai, is helming Expressions Histrionica, an interactive workshop on developmental dramatics organised by Helen O’ Grady International which uses drama to develop confidence and divergent skills among students and EProF, an organisation which promotes employability of English literature graduates.
On Bisharad’s prompting, the group members step forward to express whatever comes to mind, accompanied with actions. The succession of nursery rhymes, ditties, and Malayalam and Hindi songs leads to unceasing laughter. And, it is no small feat for those present to shed their inhibitions and perform in front of a group.
This, says Bisharad, is the focus of the exercise. “People are losing confidence and trust in themselves. My workshop, through interactions, helps build confidence and trust.” Creativity, he says, tends to die in people as they grow older. “I tell people not to kill the child inside them. We try and pretend we are serious and focussed on things. But a funny person too can be focused.”
The art of listening
Bisharad also feels that people pretend to listen to others but do not actually do so. “The day we start listening to others, we will start reacting correctly.”
For the past month, Bisharad has been touring south India with Laughter Calling, a one-hour “clown-based” show based on Anton Chekhov’s short stories. “Laughter Calling is one-hour of instant laughter that relaxes you and gets rid of all negative energy,” he says. Clowning, he says, came to him at a time when he had been doing theatre for years and found that he had “killed the child inside me.” “A couple of workshops later, my body relaxed.” His new play Helmet is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A solo act, it is a tragedy turned into comedy. “
