As real as it gets

As real as it gets

A three-year-old English drama company, The Drama Queens, which has performed a clutch of William Shakespeare plays, will be presenting their fifth play, Ghosts on Sunday evening at Aksharnandan School. Vasudev Menon, who is directing Ghosts, says, “It was a natural progression to move from Shakespeare’s works to Henrik Ibsen’s writing. In our group, The Drama Queens, we focus on exploring females in the central roles and performances. When we read Ibsen’s writings, including Ghosts, what appealed to us was the strong, central female characters in his work. In Ghosts, we tried to explore what Mrs Alving’s choices were and how that itself becomes the tragedy of her story.”

The group was also trying to move to modernism, more realistic plays and Ibsen’s language is very real. Coming to language, Menon says that their group holds a series of interim workshops which focus on the spoken word performance, and not poetry. 

“We focus on linguistic approach to the play. The turnover for our productions is students and once they pass out, we have to audition for more people. Some professionals too have worked with us. Students and working professionals can deal with English, but rendering the language into a performance is what we are looking at. So we spend nearly 1/4th of our rehearsal time, sitting with the script and breaking down the multiple layers of meanings, in terms of text, subtext, context and what the playwright intended to say and so on,” he adds. 

The conversation then moves on to writing and the audience for English theatre in Pune. Menon argues that not enough is written about English productions in the local press and hence they are looking at ways to reach out to the audience, who he believes, exists. “Pune’s population is becoming more cosmopolitan, heterogeneous. Art is a place where we can come together; theatre brings us together. If we can create allure to performing and watching English theatre, provide quality plays, then we will succeed. It will take some time, but we have to be at it,” he says. 

Therefore Menon and his core team of actors and directors, are also working on original scripts. “We have finished writing one project, it’s an interesting one. It’s a multiplatform, multi-hybrid sort of narrative. Avocado will be our first original play. Currently, we are researching an adaptation of Faustus based on the writings of Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Thomas Mann,” informs Menon, who hails from Chennai.

As far as the audience is concerned, the group has figured out two ways. “First, we are tapping into the captive audience, when we go to schools and colleges and conduct workshops. Second is the word of mouth approach. Third, there are many people from Bengal and Kerala settled here. They are interested in watching English productions, so we have to bridge the gap and perform in different areas of the city,” says the director, adding, “We can’t offer anything substandard to our audience. Quality productions are a must,” says Menon.

ST Reader Service
Watch the English play Ghosts by The Drama Queens at Aksharnandan School, off S B Road, on Sunday, June 9, 7-9 pm. Their next show is on June 15, 6-8 pm at Raah – A Literacy and Cultural Centre, Lullanagar.

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