In the right frequency
The Radiopotti by Stray Factory
The year is 1983, and the ICC World Cup is in play. A motley group of people from a small town are trying to tune into a mercury radio, to keep up with the happenings at the game. Only, the device doesn’t work too well, and they are left to fill the gaps in the commentary and recreate moments, which they have no visual access to.
“Though the play is an original piece of work written by Rajiv Rajaram, we didn’t have a full script in place. We’ve workshopped with the actors to bring the narrative together over the last month,” says director Mathivanan Rajendran. “We’re trying to do a lot of physical theatre with this piece. In fact, there is no tangible radio on stage; the actors become different radio waves and frequencies during the play,” reveals the director.
Run time: 30 minutes
Language: Hindi and Tamil, with a smattering of Kannada, Marathi and Korean
Director-speak - Mathivanan Rajendran
Mathivanan started acting in 2004, while he was still in college. For the initial couple of years, he worked with as many theatre groups as possible and in 2010, started one of his own. “I started Stray Factory because I was interested in figuring out the different ways in which I would work with the medium,” says Mathivanan, adding that the troupe has been experimenting with languages, exploring physical and devised theatre, and workshopping productions to let their scripts evolve organically.
Over the years, the group has been focusing on creating original work with a local voice, which still holds relevance with a global audience. The group has performed at the Auckland Fringe, Kakiseni Festival in Malaysia, Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles and the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, and won laurels at festivals around the world. Yet, Mathivanan says that putting this play together was quite the challenge, and one of the reasons is because, “I wanted the actors to be invested in the production, so based on their inputs, we re-drafted the play every single day.”
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A play about a play
Grand Rehearsal by Theatre Zero
Many of the biggest yesteryear actors to grace the silver screen in Tamil cinema — Sivaji Ganesan, M.G. Ramachandran, M.R. Radha — were members of a boys theatre group, which is representative of the pre-Independence era of Tamil theatre, at some point in their lives. Theatre Zero’s production of Grand Rehearsal , which is adapted from the play OrOththigai , written by Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar as part of his Sabapathy series of plays, is a farcical representation of such a drama troupe.
Since the play has no beginning or end, director Vinodhini Vaidyanathan has woven in a couple of scenes to give it a definitive plot. Also added are songs, borrowed from the theatre works of Aakkur Elumalai, and choreographed dances. “I think improv works best, so I usually leave it to the actors to design a scene using their physicality. With this play too, everything is improvised and devised, and the script was only read to understand the scene,” says Vinodhini.
Run time: 35 minutes
Language: Tamil
Director-speak Vinodhini Vaidyanathan
Vinodhini has been in the theatre scene for over a decade and yet, she says, her latest production is giving her heart palpitations. “I remember going to the first Theatre Fest performance and being awed by what I saw on stage. It’s really an honour to be a part of the Fest I’ve been following since its inception,” says the director, who is all set to stage the Fest’s first Tamil production.
Since 2003, Vinodhini has collaborated with many Tamil theatre groups in the city, before moving on to join Koothu-p-Pattarai as a full-time actor for three years. In 2010, she started freelancing with different theatre groups, working with differently-abled children through theatre and collaborating with clowns without borders. She’s a complete theatre artist — actor, director, script writer and lighting designer. “Like any other theatre person, I do eclectic things that interest me,” says Vinodhini.
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Dark and dripping with humour
Timothy by Evam
Here is a dark and hilarious play where three women hatch a plot to kill one of their husbands. Evam’s telling of the British dark comedy Timothy , written by David Barnes, is set to celebrate the hilarity of the three leading ladies. “Women, as actors, are more instinctive and emotionally tuned in than men,” says Karthik, adding that it was fun bringing that out in this production.
Karthik saw Timothy premiere in Edinburgh three years ago, and enjoyed it enough to ask for the rights to the play. “We are performing the original script and not adapting it because it’s not British in its setting, only British in its wit,” says Karthik, who is keen to watch his work unfold on stage. “I’m just going to ask for a complimentary ticket, sit amongst the audience and watch the play on show-day,” he laughs.
Run time: 40 minutes
Language: English
Director-speak – Karthik Kumar
Karthik forayed into theatre in 1995, doing everything from acting to cleaning the stage, when he first set out to learn. In 2003, he started Evam to “make a living out of what I love doing.” He has gotten opportunities in films through his work in theatre and has been cast in movies such as Alaipayuthey , Vaanam Vasappadum and Yaaradi Nee Mohini , but, says Karthik, “I’m glad I did not jump into cinema full-time. In the last few years, the decision to do theatre has paid off in many ways — not only financially and professionally, but also emotionally.”
In 2010, Karthik tried some stand-up comedy by accident and has since then been making people of this city laugh regularly at his shows. Since 2012, he’s ventured into more serious, original theatre and has also been experimenting with devised performances. “With Timothy , we’ve returned to an older format where we had a script, loved it and did it.”
