Gone in 60 seconds

The one minute play festival, Zip Zap Pow had some interesting performances.

High on innovation and content.

Touted as the first ever one minute play festival in the country, Zip Zap Pow hit stages across the city over the past few weeks, showcasing original works by dozens youngsters. Presented by The Tortilla Entertainment Company, the festival recently came to a close with performances by the 40 finalists. Ably emceed by Linnet Mathew and Aaron Punnen, the finals of Zip Zap Pow were judged by Judi Bidapa, Subodh Sankar, Saurabh Ahuja and Darius Sunawala.

Over a span of one and a half hours, participants from different walks of life took to the microphone for their individual interpretations of what ‘transit’ meant. With the event being in association with Akshara Foundation, the other theme for the night was ‘the problem with mathematics’.

Punnen and Mathew also doubled as participants, and award-winning ones at that. While Punnen won the Best Actor Male award for his second person monologue about a breakup in

Break , his performance with Mohan Ram in a hilarious satire was the highlight of the evening. Mathew meanwhile turned in a delightful performance as a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly in

Cocoon , taking home the Best Actor Female for it. Mathew was also one of the few who took to exercising their vocal cords and with delightful results.

Best Play went to Dhanesh Paika, Gopal Prabhu and Anirudh P Venkat for

Logic and Emotion , a somewhat insipid take on how to lose one’s virginity. Paika scored a double by also winning Best Script for the same play but Laxmi Priya’s runner up monologue Sabzi Mandi was by far the more entertaining and innovative one. Set in a vegetable market, it traces a girl following her mother and her memories around the marketplace. Sunaina Mudaliar meanwhile won Best Concept for the aptly named but rather overdone Girl in Transit.

The atmosphere was charged at The Hummingtree. Zip Zap Pow marketed itself as ‘flash theatre for a digital generation’ and it lived up to that branding. More than that though, it’s a worthy experiment in taking theatre out of the confines and strictures of theatre halls and to the audience. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad...