An experimental performance in the outskirts of the city will give unsent letters from around the world a new lease of life through candid readings
Participants write letters to conclude a previous session
Really what keeps us apart at the end of years is unshared childhood,” wrote poet AK Ramanujan in Love Poem for a Wife, 1. His words would later be published and widely read in the 1970s, striking a chord with readers across the globe. Among them is city-based theatre maker Tanvi Shah. “The poem posed the question — how does one sympathise and relate with someone they never met, or shared a history with?” she recalls. This weekend, Shah’s social experiment, packaged in a candid, interactive performance titled Unshared Childhoods aims to find some answers.
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Tanvi Shah
While Shah’s rehearsals for the weekend session are in full swing, the theatre maker is yet to meet the real protagonists of the show. “The audience is central to the performance. Over the course of the performance, they will participate by reading out eight unshared letters that never made their way to the recipients. We began crowdsourcing these letters in 2018 by putting out a call for submissions online. Unrequited love, broken families, and forgotten friendships are recurring themes in these letters,” reveals Shah, adding, “When these letters are read out, you realise that writer and the recipient could have been yourself, or anyone you know. That’s the beauty of the universality of human emotion.”
An artiste performs at a previous session
Shah’s troupe of musicians, movement artists and dancers will add another layer of sheen to the readings. “A majority of our participants will be reading to an audience for the first time. To make them more comfortable on stage, performing artistes like Anoushka Zaveri and Diya Naidu will perform alongside the readings. This transforms the performance from a stripped-down reading to a multi-sensory experience,” she informs us. Over this weekend and the next, the group will stage four such performances.
Participants at an outdoor session of the readings
To enable the readers to deep-dive into tricky subjects such as guilt, spite, and shame amidst strangers, Shah must make them feel at home. A quaint farmhouse nestled near a mango orchard in Titwala, on the outskirts of Mumbai helps in this endeavour. “We plan to kick things off with a community breakfast in the orchard and a clay carving session later to break the ice and help the audience bond together. The comfort and emotional wellbeing of the participants is our first priority,” she assures us.
The letters are presented to the audience
For the theatre maker, the series marks another experiment on the personal front. “As a director, you’re always taught to be in control; to watch over every single detail. I’ve always wondered how it would be to relinquish these rights. With this production, there’s not much that we can predict. People have shed tears, wept, and shared hearty laughter at our previous sessions. You never really know which way it will go,” she signs off.
ON September 14,15, 21 and 22; 9.30 pm to 3 pm
AT Winding Road Studios, Vasundri, Titwala.
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