Technology plays a role

There’s always something new theatre artistes bring to the table or stage, as you like it. This year h.g. ( Hansel and Gretel ) by Trickster-p, and the Corinne Maier-directed Past is Present , both brought to Bengaluru by Sandbox Collective, raised the bar by blending theatre and technology. h.g. was a performance installation, where the spectator walked through nine sensory rooms to experience the world of Hansel and Gretel. Past is Presenthad documentary filmmaker, Shaheen Dill-Riaz, depict his relationships with his family members spread across different countries, through Skype. Even back home, theatre artistes have experimented with technology, in particular, projectors, to enhance their productions. For example, How Cow Now Cow , directed by Vinod Ravindran, used a projector to take the audience through different landscapes.

For Nimi Ravindran of Sandbox Collective, an actor standing in the spotlight and performing is much more powerful than any fancy technology. She adds in India, there are many hurdles in creating tech-heavy productions. “There are limitations in the way we use technology in India. Theatre companies abroad are often attached to venues, so they get time to arrange their sets. Complicite, the biggest theatre company abroad, performed Measure for Measure in Bengaluru. They set up in Ranga Shankara for four days. In India, we rehearse in sheds or halls, and in the morning of the performance, we get access to the venue. We cringe when lapel mikes fail and projections don’t work.” She adds that abroad, there are sophisticated technologies such as live Skype, live projection and video, projection on the body and video mapping. “I watched a performance Ningyoby Nicole Seiler. There were just videos and lights projected. It was a unique combination of technology and the human body that seemed seamless.”

Use of technology, though, can sometimes fall flat if it doesn’t blend well with the production. Nimi agrees and says, “Supposing a play shows an actor in Varanasi, and there is a projection of images showing he is in Varanasi. That is just superficial. The audience can already imagine he is in Varanasi. You don’t need special effects to show that!”

Rajiv Krishnan of Perch, Chennai, is the director of Monkey and the Mobile , based on the theme of technology. The play of six or seven stories looks at the impact of mobile phones on our lives. “We try to make sense of how technology affects us through storytelling. Some stories are speculative, some imagined and some real. One of the imagined stories is that of an overworked emoji. It shows the typical lifecycle of an emoji. In a sense, people have become emojis, where we constantly wear masks.”.

[“Source-thehindu”]