Time is what you make of it. Memories remain. What were the last year-and-a-half or so about? Time? Or memories that will remain? These are the sort of questions that the audience might ruminate on when a new play called Cinema Mon Amour is staged on October 23 at a Bandra venue, the day after physical theatres reopen in Mumbai.

It seems as if it’s that time when things are slowly trickling back to normal. But Omkar Bhatkar, writer and director of the play, feels as if it will take some time for theatre going back to where it was. People moved on from the performance art form when it was shut down during the pandemic, Bhatkar says. “Doing theatre is exciting but you haven’t been paid for a year and a half,” he adds. Fair enough. It’s been a hard time for everyone involved in the performing arts, when shows were shut down.