14.03.2005 / The Statesman
In the past, and even now, there are efforts at what are called street theatre where the performance is surrounded onlookers and the actors and the audience seem to mingle at one point. In Call-cutta, the theatre-goer becomes the performer in a way while the stage extends to a whole locality north of the city where a team of German theatre creators had been planning this project over several months. Finally the “play’’ got off to a grand start at the newly renovated Star at Hatibagan. No, not in the auditorium itself but at the gates which was the starting point of a fascinating journey through time — where the theatre-goer armed with a mobile phone is guided by a charming voice from a call centre through the age-old locations, lanes and by-lanes where a lot of history revolves along with memories of times and places which have been left behind.
The Max Mueller Bhavan has been at the centre of this unique experience in mobile phone theatre in which the cities of Kolkata and Berlin have been linked by the latest channels of communication. There is no real proof as to where the voice is coming from but it guides the walker effectively with the help of code words, directions, signboards, wall writings and landmarks. There is indeed a lot of drama in the experience during which the person with a mobile phone establishes a sentimental relationship with the voice on the other side. At one point the walker strolls into a park, sits on a stone bench and listens to a romantic number by Manna De which the caller says is the tune that had first set her heart aflame. Is it all a performance? Or is there something real in the journey? The questions never occur till after the walker has seen heaps of rubble that was once the Biswaroopa Theatre or peered into a hole in a wall that shows an abandoned playground which once housed an old mansion full of fond memories and finally sat down in an actually drawing room for a steaming cup of coffee. The experience will go on for the next two months and in that time, Call-cutta could also establish a connection between Kolkata and Berlin where the same “play’’ is being staged in a real environment. At first there were curious onlookers in the old part of north Kolkata. Now people are watching the live performance with a sense of wonder. This is perhaps the best way of welcoming the revival of the Star.