Generation Next of the theatre group Motley brings their play All Thieves to the city, next week. The Guide gets actor Imaad Shah to tell you what to expect at the show
Generation Next of the theatre group Motley brings their play All Thieves to the city, next week. The Guide gets actor Imaad Shah to tell you what to expect at the show
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It's not often that one gets the opportunity to discusses Japanese writer Haruki Murakami's works with someone, let alone see them performed on stage. In an attempt at introducing their audience to different genres of literature, Motley's production brings the works of four contemporary writers together in the play All Thieves. Giving company to Murakami's short story will be four shorts by Italian writer Italo Calvino and one short story each by Hindi litterateurs Kamtanath and Mohan Rakesh. The common link between the stories is their contemporary relevance.
Imaad Shah has directed one of the short stories in the play
Imaad Shah, one among Motley's young Turks, elaborates on the theme of the play, "The main idea is to perform interesting works of literature on stage. Prose and theatre are two forms that fit very well with each other, and this has been the driving point for All Thieves." The collection of stories, though varied, have
similar themes of studying societal behaviour on the whole, and looking at it with a humorous and satirical eye. Each writer's style is explored in detail.
Actors Heeba Shah, Ankur Vikal, Denzil Smith, Rakesh Om and Imaad picked out the stories they wanted to work on and directed their pieces themselves. "The stories have not been adapted, but have been presented verbatim, the way they were written. The effort is to examine how short stories work in combination with stage and performance aspects. This is a huge challenge for the actors," explains Imaad.
Motley is one of the few theatre groups in the country that's constantly on the lookout for new literature. Their search for works that reflected a modern and original thought led to various reading sessions. The idea for All Thieves was born from these sessions. "We have found that the life of a theatre company, exists in the texts. We are constantly reading, individually or collectively, to discover new texts. Extensive reading sessions went into finalising the pieces in this play too," says the young actor-musician.
Apart from sharing new literature with audiences, the group also want junta to connect to the underlying theme of the play. "The importance of humour in dark situations is something the play probably stresses upon on the whole. Some of the situations encapsulated in the play are quite dark, but the writer's perspective is humorous and satirical. What we're trying to say is that the world is full of absurd situations, and the best that we can do, is to find humour in them."u00a0
On: October 15, 7.45 pm at Ishanya Amphitheatre, opposite Golf Course, Yerawada.
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