Tathagata Chowdhury’s solo act The Corporate breathes new life into Mumbai’s experimental theatre with bold storytelling and unique staging.
During the performance of The Corporate
It was here in this space in the Midday newspaper that we mentioned that Tathagata Chowdhury (TC) is back in the Mumbai Theatre scene. Last week, at the Veda Black Box in Aramnagar, Andheri West, he performed The Corporate, a 65 minute solo performance. “The space was well utilised and the performance was awesome” is what Xiomara, an International Baccalaureate teacher who teaches Spanish, had to share. She further compared the performing space with similar experimental spaces in Costa Rica, from where she hails.
The Corporate premiered as a short play, of 10 minutes at the Thespis,Bharat Rang Mahautsav festival in Delhi, in February this year. TC participated in the competition, supported by co presenter of the show, Tulika Shankar, an IIM alum and founder of Go To Scale. The performance reached the final stage and left a lasting impression on the audience. Tulika is a management consultant with more than 25 years of experience and is currently a leadership development facilitator, an actor and producer. discovered the potential of the performance to develop into a full length one act solo performance. TC had earlier won the Kalakranti Best Script and Best Actor awards for his play The Mumbai Zoo. He represented India at the South Asian Theatre Festival in 2014 with the performance.The Corporate is TC’s third solo act post The Mumbai Zoo and The Lockdown Lover.
Workshop participants at the Veda Factory, Aramnaga
The Corporate will be staged at different experimental spaces in the country, starting with Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Gurugram. The Space is a character in TC’s plays. He is at present researching on the topic and explains how the Space decides the narrative graph.
In the narrative structure of The Corporate, the space is not a mute container but a conspiratorial character-breathing, looming, cajoling. At Veda Black Box, the ceiling structure gave TC the idea to use glass shards that are meant to be mirrors for the audience. It’s interesting how the audience derived their own interpretation of the ‘set.’
Actor Manali Chakravarty, an actor who performed at a similar experimental space in The play, The Crossroads, was of the opinion that the play “picks up gradually.” She’s also quick to add that the narrative is easy to identify with. She has herself been a “corporate” at some stage in life and could completely resonate with the content.
Sharadji, is not just a book vendor but also helps theatre groups in Aramnagar to publicise their plays. He says the pricing of the tickets is astonishing. Never before a play has been priced at Rs 2k. He was initially sceptical that the rains and the swamp in these parts along with the astronomical pricing of the tickets, may not see any audience but was pleasantly surprised to see the turnout. The Theatrecian founder, TC, says that it is strategic. He’s not expecting the 700 plus audience he had at St Andrew’s Auditorium in April. He feels instead of approaching sponsors, which he’s not always comfortable about, he would rather work on increasing the audience base. Most of the audiences are personal contacts and they bring along like minded people who will benefit from such experimental shows. TC says more than the revenue, the reaction is what the eventual reward is. Berenice Da Gama Rose found the performance therapeutic. After watching the play she was relieved to feel “I’m not the only one.”
Tulika Shankar, Sharadji and Tathagata Chowdhury
The take away for TC from this experience, is that there are patrons of the arts who wish to support the arts. Artists have a great deal of challenge to sustain both their art and their existence. There are grants but the process in applying for the grants and then to eventually get one requires a different level of tenacity and is time consuming. I wish to reach out to friends, associates, acquaintances and relatives of artists to support art and the artist. Together it’ll help build a community of critical thinkers and perhaps impact a social change.
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