A play Gaman on the migrant labourers who walked up to their native places during the lockdown has been staged at a government school located in city's Nehru Nagar area.
Directed and scripted by the alumnus of National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi, Avijit Solanki, the 30-minute play was presented by Other Theatre, Bhopal. The play was prepared in a 13-day workshop.
There were no dialogues in the play. The thematic area of the play was silence and walk.
All the artistes depicted how the labourers plodded their weary way, carrying bags and baggage on their heads, shoulders and in their hands through their act. The play ended with the tune of Harmonium, symbolising – light goes on.
Solanki who specialised in direction from NSD told The Free Press Journal that everyone had witnessed the sufferings of migrant labourers who walked up thousands of kilometers to reach their destination because of job loss due to the corona pandemic.
“The play is inspired by the incident. And through this play, we wanted to tell the tale of their sufferings and to make people aware about what actually happened,” he said. The yearn they walked slowly; yet it was deadly, he said.
Solanki said that he worked on scripting and direction of the play while Gagan Shrivastava trained the artistes on acting and body movements. Gagan is also an alumnus of NSD and he did specialisation in acting from there.
Most of the artistes in the play were amateur and they belonged to different communities like Dalits and nomadic tribes. Some belong to different professions like watchmen while some were students.