Black Box Okhla: Stage-setting gets a whole new dimension

It’s eight in the evening. The generators in the factory next door are still on. Google Maps tells me I’ve reached my destination, but there’s nothing apart from a tall industrial building with details of its effluent treatment plant at the entrance. A sign forbids smoking and spitting, and I wonder if this is where The Shakuntala Project, a modern retelling of Kalidasa’s Shakuntala is going to be staged. Indeed, even though the driveway is abuzz with people, from outside, Black Box Okhla seems like an unlikely venue for a theatrical performance. “This is all part of the plan,” says Nikhil Mehta, its ebullient founder. “Black Box takes both the performer and audience into a dynamic, changeable space so that both may engage with the performance in fresh new ways.”

 
The idea of creating Black Box Okhla grew out of Mehta’s experiences with theatre in Delhi and New York where he got a masters degree in Theatre Directing at Columbia University and also directed plays on Broadway. “Our traditional performance spaces are usually these static stages over which the director and actors have little control,” he says. “That’s why I felt that to create a new theatre experience, I’d have to first reinvent the performance space itself.”
 
Mehta’s plan seems to be working. I find myself in the audience, seated way above the “stage”, which allows us a voyeuristic peep into the bedroom below. In it, two actors face each other across the room. They are Shakuntala and Dushyant, a modern young couple examining their relationship. As the play progresses, the actors continuously change the structure of their bedroom as they wonder how to “reset” their relationship and start afresh. “At the Black Box, the stage is dynamic, ever-changing both in juxtaposition to the players as well as the audience,” Mehta explains. “I like to think of it as the third performer in the play.” Two screens suddenly flicker to life in front of us, one showing the male protagonist and the other, the female. It’s as if the two screens represent their individual realities — and perhaps, the schism between them. “I wanted to depict Shakuntala and Dushyant as being in a world of their own, cut off from all external influences,” explains Mehta. “That’s why I chose to place the audience above the stage, so that they could look into this world without being a part of it.”

 

The two actors — Prashant Prakash (co-founder of Crow, an immersive theatre company) and Sharvari Deshpande (who was in Monsoon Wedding, the musical by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre earlier this year) — play the couple frantically seeking to begin again, teetering between what they have, and what they really want. They’re ably assisted by the stage setting, which continually reflects the tumult in the protagonists’ minds. In parts, the play is a little rough around the edges. But the exciting synergy of light, sound, stage and performance makes The Shakuntala Project an absorbing watch. “We’re the first theatre to use a computerised sound and light system,” says Mehta, who’s spent this summer as assistant director for the Pulitzer Prize winning drama, Sunday in the Park with George. He has also assisted Vishal Bharadwajon building workshops for Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding Musical and Rangoon.

 
Black Box Okhla seats merely about 60 spectators, making the experience of viewing an intimate one. Rehearsals have been equally intimate: “Having total control over the space allowed us to practise for three weeks on set before we opened the show,” he says. It’s a far cry from traditional theatre, where the cast and crew get to see their performance space only on the dress rehearsal. “However, to financially sustain our intensive involvement with the stage settings, we plan to run each show for at least a month — another departure from the prevalent culture of weekend-only runs,” says Mehta. The Shakuntala Project is going to play on weekends till the end of September. Mehta hasn’t yet decided what to show next at Black Box, saying only that he’d like it to be completely different. Whatever he does, one thing’s for sure — with Black Box Okhla, Delhi’s theatre scene has finally found an edgy alternative. Tickets to The Shakuntala Project are available on in.bookmyshow.com

The play is being held at at Black Box Okhla, A-68, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 2, Delhi. It is suitable for ages 15 and above