Stories in a bouquet

The cast of Guldasta

Lovers of drama typically rely on a conventional-sized playhouse or overstated make-up and props when thinking of on-stage acts. But the stage - rejoiced for its intimacy - can best impart nearness in simplicity. As happens in a classroom. Chairs are pulled out, regular clothing replaces costumes, and we hunt for paper crowns or dusty goblets for an audience to see actors invested in making artistic capital. Guldasta, a production with 14 short stories, will lead us through minimal prompts to lay the text bare. "We are following the text closely," says Hidayat Sami, director of the play. He adds that although they have translated short stories by great writers, they have done it without embellishments. "The actor in any of these plays is quite like a fly on the wall that's watching the story unfold. I have trained with the likes of Satyajit Dubey and Naseeruddin Shah. I try to keep it simple, and ask actors to make the story their own." The play takes after a uniform colour palette of red, black and white - hues Dubey liked.

Hidayat Sami

Guldasta is set to acquaint viewers with a modern vintage - a generation of writers we have forgotten. It holds one sprig for each of our sentiments. Khol Do and Shaljam by Saadat Hasan Manto, Kamleshwar's Circus, and Harishankar Parsai's Do Naak Waale Log are only a few from a select line-up of stories. Since adaptations leave room for liberties, we ask Sami if staying loyal to the text is extra challenging: "It is! There's an emotion even in small things like ek rupaiyya and do rupaiyya, and actors find it hard to relate to. Ten bucks is nothing in the present times, but it was a lot back then. Someone asked me ‘Yeh tanga kya hota hai [What's a tanga]?' These literary cues had to be absorbed to understand the intensity of words," Sami explains. The concept for the piece came together during the Monday workshops that Sami held with actor Trishla Patel, to train actors and volunteers at Prithvi Theatre.

Jyoti Kapoor, who features in Shaljam, tells us that being a living part of an Urdu script took time. "For a few weeks, I only spoke in Urdu to get my accent right. My husband used to call me begum to add to the feeling," she laughs, adding, "But the delay in getting the act out due to the virus helped me, in a way. For a long time, these writers and characters were our constituency. I could hone my craft in that stretch."

The play will present a random assortment of seven to eight stories on the days of its staging.

On: March 12 to 13, 7 pm
At: Studio Tamaasha, Andheri West.
Log on to: in.bookmyshow.com
Cost: Rs 200