Avant Garde, an art-based theatre festival, provides movement to some popular paintings

...Or sigh you for that age when our romances old,First in the realms of earth, unfurled their wings of gold; When all our monuments, and acts of faith and truth,Wore still the virgin garb of pure and 
spotless youth...

“I love the above lines from Rolla by Alfred de Musset,” says V Balakrishnan, who has adapted the artwork by the same name, by Henri Gervex, into a play, also titled Rolla. The play is one of the three stories being staged as part of Avant Garde, an art-based theatre festival presented by Chennai Art Theatre.
The plot revolves around a disgraced Rolla who squanders his money and decides to die. He visits a prostitute who has taken to the profession due to poverty, and they become perfect companions in his quest for self-destruction. “Although the painter has been accused of choosing this theme simply because he likes to paint nudes, I feel that it’s a very powerful painting, and for me, a piece of art which is revealed both through poetry and painting was an excellent choice to make into a theatre adaptation,” Balakrishnan says.

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About the  concept of blending art and theatre, he says, “‘Art meets theatre’ has been an integral part of theatre for many years. Art has inspired theatre and vice-versa. Look at all the performance arts — bharatanatyam etc, they borrow so much from sculptures and ancient paintings; on the other hand, Kalidasa’s plays have inspired Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings. So this nexus between art and performance has always been there. And what we are doing right now is only a very vocal celebration of it.” 
But is it difficult to depict a painting which is still, on stage that requires movement? Balakrishnan explains, “Movement is  a series of frames; it’s only one frame leading to the other; and the painting is a movement which is frozen in time, which means there is something before it and something after it. So for that one singular moment frozen in time, the performer chooses to unfreeze it.”

While Rolla is inspired by a poem, Bhargav Prasad’s Horse Tales draws inspiration from  an equestrian statue of Munro.When the 200-year-old statue of Sir Thomas Munro sitting on a horse in Mount Road, overhears that the government is planning to remove the statue and remake it into something else, the horse begins to worry; he trots back in time to 19th century Madras when the statue was being erected to convince the officials not to install it. Inspired by a series of paintings of Madras made in the 1800s, the first ever map of Madras, and the statue itself,  the director tells us, “The play begins when Chennai is devastated by unprecedented floods and the Thomas Munro statue in Anna Salai is overcome with guilt and existential crisis. The horse that he’s sitting on starts to wonder what the future of the city holds for them.” 

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The next set inspired by a Phad painting that depicts a fictional king Pabuji, Navaneeth’s KalaiVaaNee presents a story where Pabuji finds an escape from painting and wants to visit Rajasthan, his kingdom. 
There are a lot of twists and turns in this story! For one, there are two robbers who want to make money out of this painting; then there is a YouTuber who wants to make content; and then there is a security guard in-charge of the painting.

Navaneeth, who is making his directorial debut with this play, says, “The narrative is built in such a way that whenever all the nine stars align on Pabuji’s birthday, he can come alive; but people who touch the painting on this day will be replaced by the king inside the painting! So when the robbers try to steal the painting, the security guard accidently also comes in contact with them and all three of them get stuck in the painting while Pabuji comes out of the painting!”

Here’s when the audience will also get to know that Pabuji can speak fluent Tamil! How? Because the painting was kept at a museum in Chennai for over 300-400 years!

Tickets at Rs 299.
August 26, 3 pm, 5 pm, 
7 pm & 9 pm.
At Medai — The Stage, Alwarpet.

Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @rupsjain

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