The play for our second Baithak was suggested by Ankit Anand while we were shooting for a short film last year. I can’t thank him enough for suggesting this play. Our second Baithak –‘ The Kingdom of Chaos’ is a dance theatre adaptation of ‘Andher Nagri’ by Bhartendu Harishchandra – a play that was a sarcasm on the struggle of a common man to get justice, badly made policies and laws in British India, the working of the system and the attitude of the employees to their jobs. It is a story that makes you laugh instantly. It is an evergreen story that will be as relevant in 2050 as it was in 1881.
If I had to choose one best thing about this play, it is how open the play is to adaptation. I have adapted it to include issues that this part of the world faces. I happened to watch a video by the Telegraph titled ‘Why Europe is raging in protests’ – the reasons listed being increase in taxes and social media fuelling protests. We recently had a Frauenstreik in Switzerland protesting lack of equal pay for women. There is a reference to both issues as well as issues like ‘(un)equal opportunity’, cultural stereotyping one faces outside their homeland, society’s approach to women’s safety, a quirky reference to #MeToo and the infamous Wall, etc., but all of it in a sarcastic, funny and light hearted way.
The voices behind the expressions 
Dancer buddies 
The Lone Ranger
Recreating a play from another era in dance theatre format is different and exciting. It was fun experimenting with a musical style dialogue and dance number to present the entire market scene that appears at the start of the original play. Both Baithaks – “Three Stories” and “The Kingdom of Chaos” have the three dancers pick up props and accessories lying on stage and change into another character in full view of the audience. Traditional dance drama does not use such methods. I have seen it in theatre. I love it and used it because the audience can see the transformation of the narrator into character “X” or “Y” right in front of them. It’s where dance truly meets theatre!
I toyed with the idea of using birds as narrators of the story. Why? I have seen pets who love sweets, who show anger, guilt, etc. They have a personality! What if these tiny creatures watched us all day, were influenced by us, and thought like us? If they had a funny and/or sarcastic view of our life, what would it be?So our first Baithak ‘The Three Stories’ had three bird narrators – the over the top, star performer, scriptwriter, actor and arty type Theatre bird (the pet bird of a movie and theatre artist), the stoic, number crunching, jargon spewing, business consultant type management bird (the pet bird of a management prof), and the philosophical, methodical, ever observant, notes taking bird who makes a psychological profile of everyone he meets – Psychology bird (the pet bird of a clinical psychologist).
It was something I wanted to try. I had no idea if it would work. It worked and it worked so well. It was a separate track that ran all through and brought in the comical moments in the otherwise very intense ‘Three Stories’. So we continued with the bird narrators and they take us through ‘The Kingdom of Chaos as well and we add new bird characters with each new story creating a parallel bird world which is like ours.The most important ingredient in any performance is the artist enjoying his/her stage time – dancing, speaking for, and, playing the characters. For all those who told us it was obvious we enjoy our stage time and have fun – thank you!
As I pen this down on the 5th September, a day celebrated in India as Teacher’s Day, I remember the words of my theatre mentor – anchor, actor, director, producer and now politician Aadesh Bandekar – “Don’t follow set ways. Do something different that challenges you and makes you think and come up with new ways to present your art. At the end of that show, your audience should have watched something different, something that entertained them and made them think.” I remember that every time I work on a new concept. Thank you Dada for helping me think differently.It is said Bhartendu Harischandra wrote Andher Nagri in one day. It requires sheer genius to write something that will be relevant 138 years down the line. I hope I have done justice to the work of this genius.
The Kingdom of Chaos cover photo credit Kaushik Balakumar
My co-artists and team : Sourav, Suparna, Veena, Tripti, Ashima, Aniruddha, Rajan, Dipti, Satish, Arathi, Akshaya, Ushe & Neetha
