Staging life, positively
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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An attempt at imparting life skills to slum children has resulted in a Delhi-based NGO staging interesting productions, the latest being “Romeo and Juliet”.
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Theatre IS A MEDIUM WHICH allows you to bring in many things with a fun element
Photo: S. Subramanium
Slice of life Kutumb Foundation kids rehearse “Romeo and Juliet” at Delhi’s A.S. Junior Modern School.
William Shakespeare is often said to have thought of different endings for many of his plays. For reasons that seemed appropriate, his plays ended the way they do now.
Hamlet kills his uncle, King Lear dies in remorse, Macbeth takes Duncan’s life, Othello murders Desdemona and Romeo and Juliet succumb to family feuds. But interestingly, most Shakespearean plays highlight the thin line in life between a tragic
ending and a happy one. Even his comedies have tragic elements.
“The Merchant of Venice” is as much a comedy as a tragedy depending on which side you are on. And surely for this advantage in a Shakespearean plot, many a creative mind has picked them for experimentation over the years. The examples are galore.
Take Dawn Splendour’s recent book “Elsinore: A Modern Hamlet”, injected with the Bin Laden factor. Or say, the numerous experimental stage productions that do the rounds in the festivals of Shakespearean plays like the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Such experimentations now can impress you at times but not often can they surprise you.
But Kutumb Foundation’s “Romeo and Juliet” to be screened at New Delhi’s Sri Ram Centre on August 3 might surprise you – if only for the attempt to localise it to the extent of using it as a problem-solver for the disadvantaged.
Multi-pronged approach
With a bunch of slum children picked from a basti near New Delhi’s Khan Market, the city-based Kutumb Foundation is coming up with a series of theatre productions, including Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. They call it, “Masti Mein Romeo Juliet”.
Kapil Pandey, the Foundation’s young president, introduces you to their multi-pronged approach in handling as many as 120 kids from this slum area which has eventually given birth to their concept of using theatre as a platform for solving problems. “Our main aim is to impart some life skills to these disadvantaged kids. That includes not just helping them in finding a means of livelihood eventually but also to make them well-rounded personalities with the ability to solve problems in their day-to-day life. And theatre is a medium which allows you to bring in many things with a fun element.”
Rivalries between families living in the slum area are quite common. And so, the 30-something Pandey, along with a bunch of like-minded young people chose to address this through theatre. And “Romeo and Juliet” seemed an appropriate option. “The play is based on a different period but the problems are universal and true for most people. Particularly in the case of these kids as we found that there are many camps in one slum and often a kid from one camp does not mix with that of another. Both Romeo’s and Juliet’s families were at loggerheads and they had to give their lives for it,” explains Pandey.
After much deliberation among the children, the plot of Kutumb Foundation’s version of “Romeo Juliet” wound up with two endings, one tragic, one happy. You can call the last one a real ending.
Says Priya, a slum dweller who plays a part in the play, “We have two Juliet, one who bows down to societal and family exploitation and finally dies, the other is her opposite.
She is positive, knows how to solve problems in life and make the best out of odd situations. Not always can we get a situation of our liking.”
Though kids like Priya had their first brush with acting at Kutumb, for some others like Anand, it is not. “I have done Ram Lila before”, he says quite confidently even as fellow actor Lalit Ram adds joyfully, “He played Sita there”, and everyone else giggles. Pointing at six-year-old Baba, Rahul says, “We now call him Baba yeoman.” Anand says he wants to join the National School of Drama and take up acting as a profession. “For that I have to be a graduate and I am trying my best. I am working part time at a call centre too.”
That you need a will, not funds to make a difference seems apparent when Pandey says, “The play had been already staged twice at Stein Auditorum and Chinmaya Mission and we got both the auditoriums for free. The August 3 production has been sponsored by the National School of Drama.” Pandey adds, “We are trying to identify some key learners from this theatre project and they will go to different areas to teach their skills to kids of other slums. End October, we should be able to come up with a festival of six 30-minute plays.”
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