Playtime with Rizwan

Rizwan.. Rizwan.. Rizwan...
The name of a play that had become an integral part of 20 individual's life for more than 3 months.Working with Indian Ensemble. Working in Abhishek Majumdar's play Rizwan. A play , a process that became an extention of my life. I saw Rizwan reflect itself everywhere. In newspapers, personal lives, homes, television, travel, plays , rehearsals and everything during this phase. This was the first time I had ever acted in a professional play(not college skits and dramas in schools ) where I got to work with the best of actors in Bangalore, truly talented and lovely performers.
He managed to get all the actors dedicated to the play without losing his temper even once. We worked for more than three months with training in movement, voice, breath , improvization , clowning, miming, music, text and more and more and more..An intense training period where no one complained and  no one was compelled to stay in the piece either. We were all given the choice to leave the piece the day it stopped making sense. Everyone who decided to work in the play had made a conscious choice and this led to a relationship with  the play that was more personal and deeply emotional.
Rizwan , the story of a young boy who was killed in Kashmir like million nameless others. There have been many works that portray the political situation in Kashmir , this play however was unique as it dealt with the emotional and human aspects that were universal in nature. It wove the concept of death and its relationship to the living like a seamless poem.

There was a point where I found it overwhelming to be part of this play at a very vulnerable stage of my life. The reason I chose to be part of it was due to the poems that formed the soul of the play. Agha Shahid Ali's poetry became an inspiration for me as these poems were written by the poet when his home/land, family and memories associated with it were being raped before his life. A play written beautifuly by Abhishek inspired by Shahid Ali's work became the song of every actor and mine . I was probably the least trained and experienced in theatre in the entire group, but there was a universal connection to the play and a sense of belongingness that developed naturally in everyone.
Abhishek, a lovely director,  beautiful writer ,a n emotional person with a wonderful sense of humor was a great friend to all of us than being a controlling maniac.He brought out the best in all of us and we had no choice to love every moment of Rizwan. Indian Ensemble has been one of the most professional theatre companies that I have ever worked with, where the  training, process, punctuality and passion for the art form was simply par excellence. This experience was where theatre came alive and art became a slice of life in its truest sense.