Day 10

14th July 2019

Activities:

1. We spent the day workshopping Ankit’s play, which follows the lives of two brothers in Bundelkhand and is set against mounting religious fervour and a growing obsession with the cow.
2. Like with our workshop on Saudamini’s play, we began by reading a few scenes from the play. Then, Ankit walked us through one scene, where one of the brothers converses with a personification of the wind, that he wanted to explore further. So, with the help of two actors, Anshulika and Mahir, we began improvising that scene.
3. The actors did not enact the script, but instead were given free reign to play with the characters and explore each personality through different situations, which in turn helped the playwright see what the interactions of her characters might look like and create the basic structure/chronology of events within a scene. Again, when the scene began falling into a routine, a third character was introduced to see how the characters might respond and how the scene might change through this disruption.
4. Then, we began playing with other possible scenes that could follow the conversation between the brother and the wind. Ankit was asked to, like Saudamini, write these scenes in real time by calling out dialogues that the actors then delivered. Again, Chanakya clapped his hands to interrupt the routine of the scene if it began to grow stagnant, and each time Chanakya clapped, Ankit had to introduce a disruption into the scene.
5. Through this improv exercise, we were able to test out other potential subplots and smaller story lines that Ankit could layer his story with, and to examine existing scenes and what they might be lacking still.

Questions considered:

1. What motivates your character? What are the different layers that compose your character? How do they interact with the play’s other characters?
2. What is propelling the forward motion of a scene? Does each scene contribute to the advancement of a larger narrative arc?
3. How is routine established and disrupted in a scene? How is tension maintained in a scene?