How about a play with no planned script?

A

play

without a pre-written and pre-rehearsed script? Yes! Fourteen students from the

Women's Christian College

are rehearsing for their annual play and this year, it is not going to be the traditional style of adapting a story from a fairy tale or a Shakespeare play. This year, it's going to be different! The play,

Musicians of Bremen: An Allegory

, is actually based on two stories from Italian writer

Italo Calvino

’s

A Castle of Cross Destinies

and

Grimm Brothers

’ fairy tale,

Town Musicians of Bremen

. A group of people arrive at a strange place only to discover that their voices have disappeared. While they try desperately to communicate with each other, their host wants them to tell a story together. They begin to tell the story in silence, but discover their voices back as they keep narrating the story. When the narration is over, their host applauds them for having told a story together and found a common voice. Enthralled, the group leaves with its newfound power.

“In the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale, story there is a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster. They are all mistreated and abused by their masters. This play is an allegory of the importance of having our own voice. With a human touch to the story, our students have added elements in the characters that every individual can connect to. When all of them come together and share one common story, they realise how they had lost their own voice and in the end they find it and fight for their own story,” explains Sweetlyn Moses,play coordinator. The play will be staged in series from September 21 to 23 at 6.30pm in the college auditorium. There is no pre-written script for this play. The students worked hard for a month to come up with a final script which is refined by their director cum facilitator Hans Kaushik. “We are all amateur artistes; we don't have any professional

theatre

training. This is the second time I am participating in our annual play. Unlike last year, we didn’t have any written script or anything to adapt from. We had no script, no dialogues. We took the idea from the book and incorporated elements from our daily lives.It was really frustrating as every day, the dialogues change; everyday there is a new element we are coming up with. After a month, we finally came up a well-curated script refined by our director. It’s really challenging, but it is fun too, as it brings out the real artiste that lives inside you,” says Elizabeth John,final year,BA English. A bunch of girls suggested this idea — to have this play in a series.With no script but only discussion and improvisation we have come up with this play. The more interesting aspect of the play is the costumes. Costumes are not time bound, they are basically simple robes that can be worn inside out and interchanged between characters, says Hans Kaushik, facilitator of the play.