This weekend, Theatre Nisha presents a brand new play with a gritty story that’s sure to make you question the status quo around you. Based on a real life story from Punjab, God’s Will narrates the story of a quest for justice by a family that was wronged by the system. We catch up with theatre exponent and well-known Chennai-based artiste V Balakrishnan, the artistic director of Theatre Nisha (better known as Bala) — the writer and director of the play — to find out more.
“The story is about a young girl and her mother who are pushed out of a moving bus after being molested. The girl succumbs to her injuries and the mother and the father begin to protest seeking justice. They are offered compensation instead and are asked to step back from their protest. The play follows their struggle against Machiavellian forces,” begins Bala.
The play, written and directed by Bala is however not placed in any particular geography and hopes to make people question the world around them during its 90-minute runtime. “We are dealing with topics that can trigger anyone and so we have specified that the play is only for people aged 16 and above as the play does deal with sexual violence and suicide,” Bala adds.
The cast was looped in from the very beginning of the process and were involved in the project even as it was being written. “We had a lot of discussions on how we are going to be presenting these issues. At the end of the day we didn’t want to re-traumatise the audience. We also had psychologists and counsellors on board,” the director explains.
The cast includes Janani Narasimhan, Shakthi, Preethi Bharadwaj, Ganapathy, Murugesan, Karthik Gowrishankar, Neeharika, Shivangi Singh, Meera Sitaraman and Megha Salila.
INR 200. 4 pm and 7 pm on July 30 and 31. At Alliance Française of Madras.
romal@newindianexpress.com
@elromal