Fifth Log: 20 November 2022

The idea has always been to break the proscenium and take this show to the heart of communities, back to where our Mobile Girls’ families live, to other workers around the country, to villages and more. Therefore, the stage, whether a vehicle or not, needs to be collapsible and easy to set up – something that fits in the boot. Something that can become a stage in a place where communities gather like the Tamil Nadu folk traditions of Kattaikuttu performances.

We had a different art director/production designer when we began the work and started ideating about a moving performance space. After setting the show date, I went back to Crea-Shakthi, a theatre school and group in Chennai. I have done several theatre productions with Crea-Shakthi – a satirical Tamil interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, an intense immersive experience of war and lost anonymous voices Frankly Speaking, and two productions in the South Korean children’s Theatre Mindeulle Asian Artists Residency Festival. I have also always been a fan of how Dushyanth Gunashekar, its founder, approaches the art of theatre and storytelling, by making it as an accessible art form that can be learned and grown with. And he always kept faith in bringing The Mobile Girls Koottam play to light.

I basically wanted something that does resemble a tea-shop, but also has the openness to be built into a performance space like that of the Kattaikuttu performance styles, a space that blends into a community living life. Dushyanth is the kind of production designer who has a spark at 2 am in the morning, the kind that keeps the owl in me excited.

Here is Dushyanth explaining to Shekar Anna how with just two projection screen stands, and how three hand-crafted thennai (thatched-coconut) ceiling panels and three tarpaulin curtains, along with the red theatre blocks he has available at the Crea Studio could create the hybrid space that we want – as wide or as narrow as we need it to be.

I will share the completed set pictures soon.