With Poems by Sanket Angane, Aparna Angane, Pratibha Joshi, Jason Fernandes and Omkar Bhatkar

Arcadia…the promised land is a poetic piece, covering poetries on various aspects of ageing. The piece is an amalgamation of different kinds of poetries associated with gerontology and death, organically created by a team of six artists, who have been able to translate their lived experiences into a poetic form. The poems cover multiple perspectives of all those associated with ageing and death, ranging from the individual, to the family, relatives, neighbors, doctors, surgeons, and the society at large.

Arcadia is a collection of about fifteen poems in multilingual form, with English being the primary thread.

The piece is presented by a team of eight performing artists, and handful of the poems are performed by the poet themselves. Arcadia is a literary theatre piece, that’s neither absolutely theatre nor literature but in a hybrid space between the both. The piece is accompanied by an unplugged guitarist. Post this literary performance, the artists/ poets engage in discussion, interpretation, and analytical dialogue with the audience.

The Salon takes you into the magical world of a hair designer-IGNATIUS; who with his snips, strokes and scissors creates magic of thoughts at his Salon. In this Salon the customers are forced to look at their reflection in the mirror and confront about their adulterous affairs……

What happens when someone could read your mind and know your bedroom secrets? What will happen if someone decides to intervene in your sexual desires?
What will happen when love and lust will intermingle?

Witness the Confessions of Infidelity and the plight of many modern relationships from behind the closed doors of the SALON.

Inspired by works of the Indo Anglian Poetess Kamala Das and French writer Milan Kundera, Bereavement is a socio-literary play dealing with the philosophical notions of life and death.

The protagonist; a nameless old man, who is abandoned by his family is left desolated into an old age home to die. There he dreams of death one night and what follows is a philosophical query into understanding the notion of ‘Death’. Does he understand death?

Followed by that is the dilemma of another protagonist, a nameless woman who desires and longs for love. The love which she couldn’t find in her husband drives her crazy on the streets to find love in atleast one possible man. Does she find love, for which she is ready to give anything in exchange? Where will her search end?

Through these two characters Bereavement tries to shed light on the dark side of life, ‘the lonely self’.

Inspired from Chandrabati’s ‘ Ramayana’ & Kane’s ‘Karna’s wife’

Sita, an embodiment of Indian womanhood, is considered a devoted wife and an ideal mother. Her power of silent suffering with dignity and without asking for any favors is an unsung saga of a divine woman which goes down in the annals of Hindu scriptures.

Sita’s sacrifice is glorified that has come to serve the model of an ideal woman…..what if Sita decides to retell her story!

Draupadi is considered to be the root cause of the magnum opus Mahabharatha. She is stereotyped as “the other woman”. Was she rightful in exacting vindication for the disrobing? Was the disrobing itself so malicious that it lead to a diabolical war between the brothers? These are all perplexing questions whose answers cannot be easily discovered from multiple interptretations that are floating in the socio-cultural fabric. However, there are few aberrational courageous ones who took the plunge and resurrected Draupadi and Sita from the deepest and the darkest corridors of history and presented the unheard yearnings of these two brave souls.

What if Draupadi and Sita is resurrected in postmodern world, where time has changed but women suppression and silencing their voice, continues to exist. What if Draupadi and Sita decide to retell their stories………

‘Resurrecting Draupadi and Sita ‘ is an attempt to view this world as her-story rather than only his-story.

The play examines the randomness of life. Nothing is under our control and at times we shoul just let go- just let it be what it will. The play explores different forms of love.

– Love that is Innocent
– Love that is a Fairy Tale
– Love that has a thought behind
– Love that vacillates between friendship and commitment
– Love resulting out of loneliness and seclusion.

The play is about how the protagonist spends a particular night contemplating and reminiscing about days long gone by.Letters, calendars, pictures, posters all come to life as Amol looks back into his past remembering the good and the bad.

Five short stories in a never ending search begin on a journey that incessantly returns to the past blurring the present.