JOIN USI was shocked to know that trafficking of boys is more lucrative, it’s a bigger market. It’s almost as if we don’t want to acknowledge it or want to shut our eyes to it,” says Avneesh Mishra, actor-director-producer who owns the Mumbai-based theatre company Rangshila Productions. We caught up with him over his new play #Supernova by the Bengaluru-based theatre group Indian Ensemble in which he essays the role of the antagonist as well as the protagonist’s father. The play premiered in Bengaluru recently and has also performed at Theatre Freiburg, Germany.
Emotional story
#Supernova is the story of a young boy, Santosh, who is trafficked from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and sold in Dubai. The title of the play is the username of his online profile. As #supernova and his apparent persona become alluring to traffickers and clients, the boy reaches a point of no return. Avneesh, who plays both – Milan, the trafficker, and Nanku, Santosh’s father, – says he was charged by the concept of the play besides its eye-opening content. “Contentwise, the biggest shock for me was the choice of a boy as the central character who gets kidnapped. But my director was very sure. He specifically wanted a boy to be the protagonist.”
Secondly, he says he was intrigued that the play was to be interactive and was being positioned as a play on stage and on smartphones. “I haven’t worked on something like this before. So, I naturally wanted to experiment. Besides which I have been waiting to collaborate with our director Abhishek Majumdar for a long time,” says Avneesh.
Vandana Menon, who has spearheaded the research and interactive technology for this play, along with the team, has developed an app that needs to be downloaded by the limited number of people in the audience (30 at the most). This has to be done an hour before the play starts so that the audience is briefed about the kind of interaction that will take place. A couple of scenes into the play, the audience which acts as Milan’s (Avneesh’s) relatives start asking him questions ‘online’ through the app. “Two crew members answer on my behalf. The point behind this is to bring out that there are several Milans out there in the world. That there will be no way for you to be able to guess what another person’s innermost thoughts are. That your children’s safety is your responsibility,” says Avneesh.
About performing in Bengaluru, Avneesh says it’s supremely better than doing so in Mumbai primarily because it is a distraction-less destination. “Any venue outside Mumbai has fewer distractions. See, theatre doesn’t pay. So, if one of my actors comes up on a particular day saying I have an audition to go to or a shoot for which I will be paid Rs 50,000 for a day, how can I even think of disallowing that! But when you are out of Mumbai, there is no question of anyone going anywhere,” he laughs.
The next project
Next, Avneesh is waiting to direct a new play that weaves together the streams of cinema and theatre, which he is writing. “It is about the popular director Hiralal of 1890s, and his passion for performance. He was the first one to get an award for photography from our country, and he made the first ad film. Sadly, two days before he died, his entire godown was gutted, and with it his library and his memorabilia.”
Likewise, there was theatre revolutionary Amarendranath Dutta who was the biggest theatre person at that time. “He was responsible for bringing an elephant on stage and a cycle pedalled onto the stage for the first time! He directed Alibaba and the 40 Thieves and back then made some one lakh rupees. But even he died in near poverty. Now, many people are telecasting plays too. These two had done it in the 19th century. Alibaba was adapted into a movie back then. I am writing a play weaving their lives together. It should be done in four to five months,” says Avneesh.
Can’t wait for this one!