Glass apart

Tune in to a play inspired by a Tennessee Williams classic that hopes to keep online theatre alive

For Kerala-based director and theatre artiste Akash Nath, the pandemic did not resist creative forces from taking over. In fact, the period gave him more room and time to experiment with his style. What resulted was FRET, Nath’s newest play that will be aired and performed entirely on virtual platform Zoom. “For me, with theatre, there was a lot of room for trial and error. From an artiste’s point of view, to revive theatre and keep it going, Zoom is a good platform; it’s adaptive as well so why not use that? Every performer is struggling to find a space where they can create their art while also earning a living. It’s important that this keeps happening in the future as well because nobody can guarantee that another virus won’t wipe out our earnings completely,” he says.

A still from the English  version of the play that will be streamed entirely on  Zoom

Inspired by the Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie, Nath’s modern version is a virtual experiment in storytelling, written and performed in two languages — English and Malayalam — with two sets of actors for each bit. The classic was a choice for a reason, as through the isolation of the lockdown, relating to Williams’s characters in the play became inevitable. “I find a kind of loneliness in every character in the original play. That resonated with me because we’re all feeling those emotions right now,” reveals Nath.

Presented by Dravida Theatre, the story follows the journey of a family  — a mother, her son and her daughter in three phases, who find themselves grappling with the isolation accompanying the lockdown.

Akash Nath

“Music is also an element that we have integrated into the play. One of our characters will sing live with the addition of a ukulele,” he adds. The audience is invited to interact as well, through the chatbox option on the platform as well as in a brief session with one of the characters in the middle of the play. “There’s a character of a psychologist that appears in the middle of the play. During that time, audiences can come in and share their experiences of the lockdown through audio and video as well,” concludes Nath.

On: August 7, 6.45 pm
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