With the audience’s attention span becoming shorter, especially in today’s age of Insta reels, YouTube shorts, etc, short formats seem to be gaining popularity. And theatre, for one, knows how to adapt and/or change according to the times to have a grip of the audience’s interest. Taking a cue from this, Chennai Art Theatre conceptualised and is now ready to present Mini Five Theatre Festival that promises to bring a unique experience to the audience. Of course, it’s been a challenging task for the artistes, but the bigger goal was to keep theatre relevant in today’s fast-paced life.
“Short formats are probably the way forward. There are 10-minute plays and even one-minute plays, but nobody has worked with a five-minute format! That’s when I decided to come up with a five-minute theatre festival. It’s an experiment, and I think we are the first ones to do it,” says B Charles, curator of the festival and the brains behind it.
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The 10 plays include Sirippu Varala, Shhh..!, Fingeroid, Kuppanin Kanavu, Gummiruttu, Bad 4 You, Munnurai, Mathaji, Kaikulukal Kandupidipu, and Kottavi Kohttai — all in Tamil. In Sirippu Varala, two men face a life-altering choice with a single bullet and a mafia’s ultimatum. Shhh..! captures the chaos backstage during a Ramayan play, contrasting the green room whispers with the on-stage epic. Dr Sigichai Sigamani’s journey unfolds as he treats an actor’s peculiar ‘fingeroid’, unearthing his own passion for acting in Fingeroid. In Kuppanin Kanavu, Kuppa, a rickshaw driver daydreams of a lavish life until a customer shatters his illusions on a rainy day. In Gummiruttu, a conversation between village men intertwine with their quest for divine permission. Bad 4 You is a girl’s curiosity about a drug dealer. Munnura is about a father’s haunting dream that hints at fraternal conflict; while Mathaji tells about an inept son’s accidental casting that unveils his mother’s hidden talent. Kaikulukal Kandupidipu sees a handshake as a sin in a country like ours, and then there is Kottavi Kohttai where a king bans yawning.
“We believe that these short stories are effective because they condense profound themes into a compact narrative leading to impactful storytelling that resonates deeply with audiences,” adds Charles.
Written and director by Bhargav Prasad, Kottavi Kohttai and Kaikulukal Kandupidipu (invention of the handshake) are satires about the times we live in; in short they are general manifestations of bureaucracy in today’s life, but in a very light-hearted manner. “Chennai has a legacy of doing a lot of short theatre; I come from the same background. So, though there’s a challenge, I think there’s a lot one can do in five minutes. How I look at this five-minute festival/format is a rebellion against the short form content that’s quite addictive on digital screens. I think theatre is a great way to immerse the audience in the real sense of space and time. So, immersiveness is something I am playing with in both the plays — as in, what does it really take to immerse and get an audience to participate in your play, rather than just be passive watchers,” Bhargav tells us.
Juvith Arthi, who has adapted Gummiruttu and written and directed Bad 4 You, says that the former is a conversational play. “As we had to squeeze in a story in five minutes, I have taken only a conversation from the original story by Vela Ramamoothy. In this format, I tried not to delve into a ‘beginning, middle and end’, and left Gummiruttu open ended,” Arthi says, adding, “Bad 4 You, which is a dark comedy, does have a climax, but I have kept the story precise.”
Munnurai and Mathaji are written and directed by Vijay Babu. For the latter, Vijay has cast his own mother as the script demanded a complete novice. Munnurai, he says, is a shortened version of a 20-minute play that he had written. “Shrinking it to five minutes wasn’t that big a task. My aim is to experiment, to see how the audience is going to take it as we convey an emotion within five minutes. I am also switching between two polar emotions — drama and comedy — to see if this YouTube shorts, or Insta reel format of theatre works.”
Tickets: Rs 300.
August 18, 8 pm & August 19, 4 pm & 7 pm.At Medai —
The Stage, Alwarpet.
Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @rupsjain