THE NEW DIMENSION

Theatre artistes in the city are exploring the visual medium for their plays.



VISUAL DRAMA: Artistes feel visuals help enhance the effect of plays

THINK theatre and you think dramatic artists and an elaborate stage. But can you relate theatre to technology? Today, it’s all about being innovative and creative. Theatre artistes are saluting this change, and embracing it by going techno. Theatre enthusiasts can get a slice of that with plays being staged with the help of visuals. When artiste and director Hina Siddiqui, saw the play Sex, Morality and Censorship, she was inspired to use visuals to tell her story too. “Last year, I saw them use footage of advertisements and movies to talk about morality and censorship. That's what inspired me. I think we were the first in Pune to use visuals for English plays.” She went on to use visuals for Sapphire Butterfly Blue and A Thousand Paper Cranes. She adds, “We used real-life footage to create a visual context for the audience. This made the problems more real and relatable to the audience. They could feel the emotions better and that took the play a niche higher; from being just a fiction to a true story." But it’s not just theatre artists who are loving this experiment with the new medium; it’s also the audience. As the images move, the visuals add an extra dimension on stage. As theatre enthusiast Arunima Sharma agrees,

“Visuals help in a better understanding of the concept. Recently I saw a play that had a slide show of images of real happenings in the background. It helped us feel the story better. Visuals definitely give authenticity and a real-life feel to plays.” Obviously, visuals have the capacity to include facts, figures and statistics something that adds credibility. Moreover images and facts on a screen, have a bigger appeal than people enacting them out. Also, visuals give you an opportunity to play around with ideas, something that made creative director Shiladitya Roy use them for his play, Darjiparar Marjinara. He says, “Visuals provide concrete settings and at other times just the perspective. For this particular play, I used static visuals which were more of an enhancement. The entire script was in the form of poetry. So most of the images were like metaphors leaving the spectators amazed.”

The trend of using visuals is not new to theatre though. “It is just a workaround for elaborate Cyclorama settings which used to be the forte of Elizabethan plays. It is technology that has now lent its might to the stage. And we of course learnt it from the Bolshoi theatre in Russia,” Roy informs. While including visuals could help you enhance the act, it could also backfire. Director Sarang Sathaye warns, “Although visuals help interpret narratives, it should not be overused. It could kill your play. We need to do justice to the play by using it where ever necessary and creating a balance.” For a play titled Tichee 17 Prakarne, he has used the contrasting visuals and live cameras to add depth to the act.

Exploring new avenues and being different surely adds zing to a performance. While long narratives and influence of sutradhar has time and again added drama, the use of digital medium is indeed an interesting addition!