The Stuff of Smol Ones
“I used to watch every play at Summertime@Prithvi as a kid. The ones I really liked, my mom and I would sit for the second show of.”
I can imagine little Nishna Mehta, watching a play she’s already seen, knowing exactly what’s on the way and yet, just a big bundle of joy and excitement.
And if that isn’t adorable enough, think of an adult Nishna in a the tech box, all set to operate lights for a children’s play and spotting smol versions of herself in the audience.
The staff at Prithvi has seen Nishna grow into a young lady, now working with Gillo Theatre Repertory. And grow up she might have, but Nishna never grew out of the magical world that is theatre for kids. For actor Omkar Kulkarni, acting in plays for children also means working with Pros like Kashin Shetty, Abhishek Saha and Akarsh Khurana.“There’s a different high, a different energy. I tried working on regular plays but somehow I just didn’t enjoy it as much.”
“Seeing them improvise on stage is maaad!” he says. “And so much of children’s theatre means working the play around for the little ones. We often have to judge our audience based on their laughter, adapt and go on. Sometimes, they’ll respond at physical comedy, other times they erupt into laughter at a punchline. On some days, we find the perfect balance. It is such a joy.”
Omkar also believes that increased energy and actions works for the kids. Akshay Anand Kohli, who acts in the play Gameboy, also thinks on similar lines. “Between the shows we performed last summer and this one, I have realised that a play needs to be auditorily and visually appealing to the children.”
Akshay has also written and directed Gameboy. The story of a boy’ addiction to gaming comes from his own childhood. But don’t children listen to moral stories all the time?
“The key is to make it look cool.” says Akshay “If playing with your friends looks cooler than playing with a screen, the kids don’t find it preachy. They start to connect with the protagonist and the message then becomes subconscious. Allot enough time for the vices and the virtues. It is important to not cheat them.”
Another thing to avoid is adultsplaining (an outrageous form of mansplaining) when the kids are watching the play. It’s parents, more often than not who are found guilty of the act. “Kids are smart enought to understand and inculcate stuff of their own” a very annoyed Sananda Mukhopadhyaay (writer of cool facebook rants and teacher of theatre) told me once at one such play. “The idea of it to given the a complete virtual and aesthetic experience that has no space for footnotes in it. Your kids are smart, don’t keep whispering an explanation to them.”
Kids are smart, and equally restless. If Akshay and Omkar believe in the physicality factor, Nishna is against it. They will see through you if you aren’t in character and tear you apart. Huge sets, lights and props don’t impress them. One thing all three of our young torchbearers agree upon is that the blackout must be minimized. A blackout means kids will immediately start chattering and once you’ve lost their attention, it’s terribly difficult to win it over again.
For particularly chatty kids, Omkar’s Pros have their own tactics. “We try including these tots in the play. We respond to them, joke around with them. It makes the kids feel like a part of something bigger than themselves.”
The love with which Akshay, Nishna and Omkar talk about these plays, it’s definite that they will all be returning to children’s plays again and again. And what about the little Nishna Mehtas in the audience? They will return too of course.
Omkar tells me the story of little boy who came back to watch another show. When actor Abhishek Saha spoke about that day being in birthday, the excited (and probably confused) boy exclaimed,
“Aye but it was your birthday yesterday also!”
Thespo Ink 