The story so far
28 Feb 2019
'The most enchanting play of the international segment of this festival was Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken. It was presented by the artists of Jangama, a collective of five artists trained at the Intercultural Theatre Institute, Singapore. Mostly a speechless production, it depends on the breath, gaze, movement, etc. of the actors, ignoring the dialogues of the script almost totally! Directed by young directors Sankar Venkateswaran, even the music was used very sparingly in it.
Sankar said, “Human beings spend only around 20% of their time speaking; the rest of the time is in the sphere of silence. Our theatres do not represent that silent aspect of existence enough. They are mostly caught up with language, rhetoric, and text. Also, as a country, as much as the languages offer windows, they also create walls and barriers. So, the language of silence can work across different cultures – I like to explore of the vulnerability of that realm of existence on stage. We should resist loudness in theatre, and concentrate more on small actions, breath, gaze, movement, etc. We should learn to understand the loudness of silence!”
His ‘frames’ in the play were sculpture-like, while “inspiration for the movement was taken from the slow-motion theatre styles of Noh from Japan and Wayang from Indonesia,” said Lakshmana, who played Rubek in this play.'
- The Hindu
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