Bansuri is a half-improvised play. The structure of the play was discovered throughout the practices until we had the basis of our story. In this way we could avoid depending on any script, given the challenges of connection that we were facing and that anyone could experience at the time of the play, even fall from the meeting could happen so following a script was a burden itself. After the group was meeting for 12 weeks and practice through theater exercises, the actors were able to perform in a natural way.
The play showcases the tale from Amartya Sen’s parable in which three students contend to win a prize from their teacher, each one representing a view over justice.
The Plot
In the previous Month, an essay competition was organized for students of many schools over an opportunity to go to the U.S. free of cost for higher education. In case of winning, it depends on the teacher how she will choose the candidate. Only the best candidate will be selected from the class where the winning essay comes from for the scholarship. After one month during a critical thinking session the teacher notifies that the class has won the competition. From there on the three students enter an argument about who is the more deserving candidate to enjoy the opportunity.
Then all of them start sharing their point of view to prove that they are more deserving and the best candidate for the scholarship. Tabassum sais that she is the most intelligent and also the topper of the class and she has won many scholarships because of that .Anshu shares that she belongs to a poor family background where girls are not taught much and married after eighth or tenth class and that if she gets this opportunity, she will be the first girl in her family who will get higher education. At the same time Sanjay, who has put the class in the game also claims for his right to the prize.
As per the play and the tale of Amartya Sen, are approaches types of Justice which are part of our take:
- Utilitarian: Tabassum is the best candidate according to utilitarians because she is the one that would make a best use of the scholarship.
- Egalitarians: Anshu should get this scholarship because she comes from a poor family and without this opportunity she would not get higher education.
- Libertarians would give the opportunity to Sanjay because he contributed a lot to organise the participation of the class and wrote the winning essay.
Experience of the actors
It was a totally practical dependent play and we practiced many times continuously without writing or preparing any script, so I always had to keep in my mind that I should not speak anything that would hurt the audience because it was a social play.
Sonali Sahu
“When we used to do rehearsals, the best thing I felt was the warm-up of starting in which we used to enjoy a lot and that warm-up activities make our sessions more interesting. it was a very new thing that I was acting in life for the first time. Sometimes I faced network issues during the practice but this online play was an amazing experience for me.”
Shrikushal
“For me, it turned out to be a very operative one because I had never participated in online play before, although I have acted many times in several plays but this was the first experience for me that I had to play online. I love to do warm-up activities. Sometimes networking was a huge issue for me. After many days of practice I became very confident that I would be able to do this play well in front of everyone and during the session our mutual understanding and bonding has also become very strong.”
Simran Gautam
“The best part of the play was that we used to do some activities during rehearsals and we used to enjoy it a lot. During this play I learned how to face the audience. The first time I tried acting in my life as a teacher so it was a little bit challenging for me.”
Palak
