Performances in the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK) have been redefining all conventional concepts of stage, drama, audience, and even actors.
When some plays do not have a director or even actor, another one is performed in a swimming pool. Children’s park and bus stand are turning makeshift stages.
The State from Bulgaria was ‘performance’ without actors and a director. The performance is just the text, the audience, as well as people’s basic conceptions of how to function in a society. The audience is seated in a circle around a table on which letters are placed in a box. Members of the audience may read these letters or do something else with them, thus creating their own small society, and their own rules about how to proceed with the situation. Alexander Manuiloff, the man who created the play, is a writer, dramatist, and screenwriter.
History through pools
Pool Play , a musical directed by Erin B. Mee, provided another experience for theatre buffs. The audience sit around a swimming pool and dangle their feet in the water as the artistes examine America’s long, joyful, and complicated relationship with water, swimming, pools, and environment.
The play begins with a dance number set to Goege Frideric Handel’s Water Music , proceeds through a series of scenes about the racist, classist, and gendered history of pools in the U.S. The idea originated from a book about the history of swimming pools in the U.S. Pools were originally built in cities as a place for poor immigrants to bathe, to exercise, and to have fun. They were segregated by gender. Soon, they were segregated by race.
Acting Bug , a 60-minute performance from France, takes the form of a traditional flea circus. A flea circus refers to a circus sideshow attraction in which fleas are attached to miniature carts and other items, and encouraged to perform circus acts in a small space.
Written and directed by Patrick Sims, The Acting Bug is the story of the Theatre of the Plague by Artaud, in the form of a travelling, traditional flea circus.
Antonin Artaud has been quarantined because of a rumour that he carries the plague. Although he is imprisoned in an isolated cell, he continues to train his performing fleas for an upcoming tour. The ringmaster nourishes the fleas with his own blood. The fleas, however, flourish in these conditions and are able to perform some of the most incredible feats.
The Story of Sara by Oynar Theatre Group, Iran, is told through acrobatic moves by young actors. Children are playing games. Suddenly, they realise that their friend is sick and he can’t play with them. They figure out that she is stricken with cancer. Then, they decide to fight cancer together and save their friend’s life. The play was performed at the children’s park in the city.
