Director Kalki brings death to life in debut play

Actor Kalki Koechlin struck up a comical debate on and with death in her play, The Living Room, staged in the capital on Saturday. Like many of her ideas, the 90-minute English play, which marks her debut as a theatre director, too came from the jottings in her journal. Set in a living room, a place where time and space stand suspended in a different dimension, the play features death himself, played by Neil Bhoopalam.He wants to enjoy some tea and cookies while he waits for his next claim. But Mrs Ana Nil, an old woman played by Sheeba Chaddha, won’t go down without a conversation. The theme of the play might sound morbid but it has a measured amount of humour.
“I was relieved that the audience laughed at the jokes, and at the same time responded with an appropriate amount of silence to the more serious scenes,” Koechlin told TOI. Her play, performed at India Habitat Centre as part of the Old World Theatre Festival 2015, ends with an unforgettable frame of Ana holding on to a cookie in her last moments. When death finally takes her, the stillness of the scene is crumbled by the cookie falling from her hand and rolling on the stage. It’s a metaphor, said Koechlin, of life moving on. Another quaint symbol is a conspicuous red book that changes its text as it passes from one character to another. “It stands for free will,” said Koechlin.
The idea of the play came from a fictional conversation Koechlin penned down a few years ago. “I tend to write down anything that bothers me. I even have a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings and ticket stubs to theatre shows that had an impact on me,” said the maverick actress. The play, she says, seeks to initiate a dialogue about the inevitability of death. “Life has become very cheap in the last few years. Yet, we spend it trying to survive longer and doing things to be remembered for, instead of enjoying it,” said Koechlin.
So how difficult was the switch from acting to direction? As an actor, Koechlin said, she can afford to simply react to things, but direction doesn’t afford one that luxury. “You’re controlling so many aspects - sets, lighting, music; it’s an exercise in multitasking,” she said. But the most difficult part for her was figuring out where to edit the play. “There are so many things talented actors bring to the stage, but you have to learn where to draw the line between what will go and what won’t.” The play has been acclaimed by critics and viewers but Koechlin is wary of taking up movie direction any time soon. She doesn’t have the technical knowhow or the time to direct a movie yet, she said.