Smell… Script…Go!

15^th September, 2015.

What is non-traditional theater? What makes it different from traditional theater? Or rather, why have more and more artists started to go with the option of non-traditional than traditional? According to the critic behind “Non-traditional Theater: What Works?” non-traditional is basically a form of theater that has strayed away from the normal, the conventional. In many ways it is that form of theater which is outside the Aristotelian form of drama. In The Heretic’s Mirror, it further states ‘The need to identify with and to feel for the protagonist is a requirement for both standard story-telling and non-traditional forms… when you’re using non-linear techniques or you’re not providing a dramatic narrative, you need something else to keep the audience engaged.’ In my opinion that is what non-traditional theater does, it keeps the audience engaged. That is what we as a class have to accomplish in a week worth of rehearsals before the big day – the performance.

In today’s class we further deliberated on what could or could not be used with our preferable stage – non-traditional. Since we had already been divided into groups, each group had to come up with a script that could be used for their individual performances. In our previous session, we were set the task of creating a piece of fiction that could concisely convey the message behind the folktale Heer Ranjha, in today’s class our instructors asked us to choose two of our most potential stories. Since Heer Ranjha is a folktale, it works like a myth or legend, too many possibilities and outcomes so, every member of each group had to come up with their version of the most beautifully concise adaptation of the tragedy of lost love.

The group which had ton smells of Lahore, came up with two scripts that we mashed together to make one beautiful script. Two historians talking amongst themselves about Heer and Ranjha as the two lovers would have moments where they would describe their emotions and feelings in poetic verse and so on. Engaging the prose with the poetic… making art!