Footnotes

The play, inspired by Yasmina Reza's Art, was based on the actual, real-life experiences that we had lived through while working with different amateaur theatre groups in the city. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to stage it in an intimate, minimal and non-conventional style, in part motivated by the kind of spaces that small theatre teams are actually able to afford in New Delhi. The play had scenes with a wide variety of settings – a small rehearsal space in a house, a public art gallery and a road-side cafe outside a prominent theatre – allowing us to experiment more with lights and sounds to portray different settings rather than relying on big sets or props. In particular, we relied on keeping the same furniture throughout every scene, merely changing their orientation or use in space to show a transition. Another critical element of our staging plan was to create a small, personal space for every character at the periphery of the performing area, where they would exit to at the end of a scene. At all times, the characters remained on stage in their own personal spaces, giving an audience a glimpse into who they were even if they weren’t performing in the scene. The themes of contrasting theatrical expressions (traditional vs modern) and how they formed a metaphor for the outlook each character had towards their own lives, formed the primary intention of the performance.