Cultural Club & StageCraft presents ‘V’ (Five)

The Cultural Club on campus was officially formed in November 2012 and in three years it has grown exponentially. It comprises of the dance, music, theatre and movie wings. The motive of the Club is to bring together people trained in various forms of art and successively train interested people on campus. The group put up its first performance in August 2014 which received an overwhelming response. With three performances already, and three more on the cards in the next 2 months, the Cultural Club promises to enthrall the audiences even more.

The club recenly formed a theater wing StageCraft. The group started off with weekly sessions where the team interacted and practiced different aspects of theatre. When the idea of doing a production was considered, actors auditioned for individual roles for each of the 5 original plays, written and directed by Prabahan Chakraborty.

Rehearsals would be usually followed by feedback sessions and discussions by the entire cast and crew. “The practice wouldn’t end with the everyday rehearsals….even after that, a part of me would still be practicing…I was obsessed”, says Vardhanam Daga, a member of the cast.

On the 17^th of July, 2015, StageCraft staged it’s debut showcase of 5 original short plays. Titled ‘V’ (Five), the evening began with the play ‘Paradise’.

Featuring Reety Arora , Abhinav Yadav and Rimple D’Almeida, ‘Paradise’ dealt with questions about life, and what happens before and after our existence. What begins as a conversation between two unknown people takes a surprising turn at the climax.

Paradise was followed by ‘The Mooneater’ (left to right, Aparna Agarwal, Vardhanam Daga, Rimple D’Almeida and Prabahan Chakraborty). Three friends discuss about the failed relationship of a fourth friend, when startling facts come to the forefront.

The plays were connected by monologues that were delivered by the actors.

The third play of the evening was an agit-prop styled physical theatre piece called ‘Birds and Other Carnivores’.

A play about women, their lives and stories of their survival, it deals with age old questions in a new light and in a new design (from left to right, Terence Christie, Gaurav Diwan, Rimple D’Almeida, Divya Ramesh (in white), Anupama Ambika, Ketan Thorat and Vardhanam Daga).

Number four – ‘Paper on the Nose’, an absurd tragicomedy set in a very tangible, yet distorted reality of our everyday lives. “It was amazing….(it) taught me how to be a team player….never thought theatre would be so much fun”, says Ananya Mukherjee (in picture).

The tale of a happily married couple - a husband who ‘nose’-it-all (Vardhanam Daga) and a wife looking for answers, ‘Paper on the Nose’ escalates to an unexpected climax in an epic twist of fate.

The evening ended with ‘Phoren’, a musical comedy about an individual’s aspirations to go abroad at some point in his or her life (left to right, Ananya Mukherjee, Anupama Ambika, Ketan Thorat and Terence Christie).

With an ensemble cast, the play had multiple songs that were accompanied by djembe (Saptarnab Naskar), keyboard (Prabahan Chakraborty) and dance (choreographed by Nitya Nandkishore), and was designed as a colourful palette of satirical proportions.(From left to right, Terence Christie, Gaurav Diwan, Ananya Mukherjee, Divya Ramesh, Snehal Karpe and Banhita Maitra)

The StageCraft team, including cast and crew (Lights – Yogaraj Banerjee and Sri Vamsi Matta, Sounds – Arindam Ghatak, Backstage – Mrudula Sane, Rohini Subhramanyam, Pritha Ghosh, Sahana Sitaraman, Payel Chattarjee, Parijat Sil , Meenakshi Iyer and Soumya Bhattacharya).