JOIN USEver wondered how one can enact a story within 60 seconds? It is possible, thanks to one-minute plays which are becoming popular in the City.
“One minute is more than enough to get on stage, deliver the story and take a bow,” says Anita Mitra, who curated ‘Zip Zap Pow’, a unique theatre festival for short plays.
The audience needs plays that are fast-paced and entertaining unlike anything you have ever seen before.
Theatre lovers will remember Anita for her ‘Short and Sweet’ theatre fests, featuring plays that wind up in 10 swift minutes.
While 10-minute-plays originated in Sydney as a social experiment and caught on in Europe, one-minute plays originated in the US a few years ago, and have become quite a rage here now.
“One-minute plays celebrate the power of the moment. They grab hold of a central idea around which a conventional play would take an hour to build on and give it to the audience in one dramatic punch. Sets, props and costumes are minimal or non-existent. The performance and the story is the hook,” says Anita.
In fact, the trends in theatre are anything that is unconventional. “Our audiences and performers are well-travelled and are exposed to new ideas on a daily basis. This makes for a very exciting era of entertainment. If it’s good, it will fly! We are no longer restrained by conventions and the fear that if an idea is new, it will be rejected,” she says.
Anita feels that a lot of people think that one-minute theatre is about telling a joke or enacting a gag like a skit but they are actually conveying thought-provoking stories.
One-minute plays are not elocution pieces or debates either! From humour to pathos, one-minute plays attack just about every emotion or theme. Women’s issues, love and betrayal are some of the themes that have been explored in this format.
There are no limitations in exploring a vast and intense subject within 60 seconds although audiences tend to relate to a certain subject faster when told within a short span of time.
“In one of the plays, we had three ladies and that image immediately drew the audience’s attention and they knew what to look forward to. The audience’s attention span is very less. They need new messages, ideas and want to be entertained in a short span of time,” says Shantheri Mallaya, an actor. Conveying a concept in a minute is the biggest challenge although advertisements have been doing this for years.
“But then, advertisements have the luxury of technology and editing to convey messages and stories in less than a minute. A live one-minute play on stage is different, it’s instant and spot on. If it’s a monologue, it is still easier but enacting a play is difficult as you are trying to convey an idea. We have to pick themes that are relatable, condense the script and make it crisp. And the actors need to be quick and create an instant impact with the first dialogue,” adds Shantheri.
Ratnakar Baggi, another actor who has been part of one-minute plays, feels that this isn’t very different from the usual and traditional format. “But we do have a time constraint and we need to be prepared from the word ‘go’. And for a writer, it is quite challenging as the script with an idea needs to be written within just a minute. The essence lies in the concept and the trick is to leave out the unnecessary elements. Having more than two to three actors is quite hard in this format,” he sums up.