Back again this time after seeing the results of week #2 i.e. the other set of 10 plays from the top 20. I was so anxious after last week that I actually went to the very first screening of the second half on Thursday evening. In fact, if you haven’t read about the Short+Sweet theatre festival, then do read the previous post to get some context.

The second installment was quite different from the earlier one: the bizarre plays were more bizarre, the rowdy ones were more rowdy and the best ones were better. There was more complex lighting; one of the plays went all the way to having a cast of 6 members, some of the stage set was more elaborate.  All in all, this was a more intense installment.

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If you have have never wondered what a mix of rapid fire quiz round, a reality show and some good old theatre would feel like, then just show up at the Short+Sweet festival happening at Ranga Shankara during the current fortnight rather than thinking too hard. The festival traces its roots back to Australia and is a decade old. Alex Broun is the festival director for the Bangalore leg of this event. The format comprises 10 plays running for no more than 10 minutes each. A nice brochure is offered to every member of the audience that gives out the name of the play, the troupe members and a one line description and this is immensely helpful.

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The UK-based performing arts company Bandbazi has been touring India this November with their play Mind Walking, a cross between theatre and aerial acrobatics.

Philippa Vafadari, the creative director of Bandbazi who also plays the role of Rosa in Mind Walking, talks to us about the making of the play.

Shuchi: What prompted the choice of subject – an old man losing his mind, in an alien land?

Philippa: I am half Iranian and met an old Iranian man in a dementia care home who had forgotten his English and only spoke Farsi. I speak ok Farsi and when I spoke to him he wept. Where was he? Iran aged 10? Who knows. He was in an English home with nothing familiar around him. My mother and my siblings don’t speak Farsi. What would happen to our family if my dad lost his English?

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It is often that I find myself saying: "The concept was great, if only the execution lived up to it." Mind Walking was a change – it made me say the exact opposite.

The story of an old man whose degenerating brain keeps wandering into a pretty predictable past, doesn’t make for the most exciting plot. What holds the play together is some top-notch acting – and the very interesting use of a hoop.

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The promos of the play The Tale Of Haruk had me intrigued: the language, they said, was "Korean with English subtitles".

Subtitles in a play? This was a new one.

They managed it with large screens along the sides of the stage to display English translations of the actors’ dialogues. With that aid, the audience in Bangalore could follow the Korean play without hiccups.

When I hear my friends rave about Neenaanaadrenaaneenena? or Mysooru Mallige, I wish for a bridge across the language gap – and my mind harks back to The Tale of Haruk.

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As you’d know, the phrase “stealing one’s thunder” is used when someone else appropriates one’s ideas for their own benefit, robbing one of deserved credit.

The phrase interestingly has its roots in theatre.

The story is that seventeenth century British dramatist John Dennis used a new method of creating the sound of thunder for his production Appius and Virginia (1709). It isn’t clear from the texts available today what this method was, some sources say it was rattling a tin sheet on the backstage, others say it was rolling metal balls in bowls of wood.

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