Indo-German theatre partnership will take the stage in the city later this month.
One is a 10-year-old institution that has been working against great odds for the revival of theatre in the country; the other, at 32 years, is a venerable body, the oldest community-funded theatre company for children and young people in the Baden-Württemberg state of faraway Germany. But Ranga Shankara in the city and Schnawwl Theatre have been working on a unique collaboration for the past three years, which culminated in a production called “Boy With A Suitcase”, written by English writer Mike Kenny and directed by Andrea Gronemeyer, staged earlier this month in Mannheim, the German town where Schnawwl Theatre is based. It’s coming to Ranga Shankara later this month, and in mid-June, will travel to other Indian cities.
This collaboration, called “Do I know you?”, is one of the 28 international theatre partnerships under the German project called Wanderlust.
Wanderlust is an application-based fund that finances theatre partnerships and exchanges for two to three seasons. In the first year, the ensembles can visit their partner theatres to become acquainted with their theatrical culture. In the second, they can choose to host a guest production from their partner theatre and exchange notes on working techniques that will then be incorporated into in-house productions of plays. And in the third year, the theatres can organise a co-production to be performed at both locations.
In phase I in September 2009, Schnawwl presented a play, “The Great Lalula”, at AHA!, Ranga Shankara’s theatre festival for children. Schnawwl’s theatre teachers accompanied the production and in a later workshop with their counterparts at Ranga Shankara, introduced the notion of theatre for children as young as 18 months.
In Phase 2 the next year, the Indian participants travelled to Mannheim and Stuttgart and, together with German actors, participated in the Baden-Württemberg Children and Youth Theatre Meeting as part of the Schöne Aussicht Festival in Stuttgart. Later, in the summer of 2010, the ensembles worked separately on plays that were to feature in the two theatres’ regular programmes and exchanged artistes. Schnawwl’s stage designer Christian Thurm designed a mobile stage for Ranga Shankara’s production “Robinson and Crusoe”, and Kirtana Kumar conducted a workshop and helped choreograph the Schnawwl production of “Ramayana”.
In the final phase, the tie-up developed a production that had the challenge of intercultural dialogue as its theme. They chose “Boy With A Suitcase”, the story of a 12-year-old war refugee who undertakes a long and dangerous journey to be with his sister in London. He carries only a small suitcase and a treasure of stories from his childhood. On the road, Naz meets Krysia, a young girl in similar circumstances, who helps him. Naz finds his way to London and his sister. But is it the “heaven on earth” that he expects? A gripping narrative, Naz’s journey also turns the spotlight on the real dangers faced by children who have to migrate alone today.
Mounting the Indo-German co-production also helped examine the challenges of intercultural dialogue in real life. For the project, the Indian and German artists developed something called “cyber classes”, using e-mail, blogs and skype to exchange ideas about theatre.
The Indian team, led by Arundhati Nag, features actors M D Pallavi, Shrunga, Kirtana Kumar, Konarak Reddy, Sridhar Murthy, Amba Sanyal and Mohammed Mustafa.
