Arts
Bringing back that stage magic
Nismath Tasleem and Heshal Peiris
Missing the excitement of the theatre due to the pandemic and wanting to inspire others, a group of teenagers create their own company ‘Clutch Plays Theatre’ and put on their maiden production in a home setting
A clutch play is usually a gaming/sporting term used to describe a crucial moment in a match when you beat the odds against you. Hoping to create theatre that will make a statement and plays that will change the tide is the vision driving the newly founded theatre production company ‘Clutch Plays Theatre (CPT)’.
” I really missed doing theatre this past year and I was feeling quite anxious waiting for the next production. I wanted to start a company anyway and when my friend asked me ‘so why not do it?’,we launched the company within a month and then within the next few weeks, found a script,” says CPT President and founder Mayaan Haputantri.
His team consists of Vice-President – Pravin Jayasundere, Secretary Saranie Wijesinghe and Treasurer – Ashiq Dole, all of whom were involved with theatre in school.
“I feel like when we do theatre or even watch a stage performance, you get this sense of freedom, inspiration and sense of hope especially in these difficult times. We missed that for a year and I wanted to bring that magic back,” Mayaan says. It was also to prove to himself, the audience and the team that it was possible to be inspired again, to dream, to perform and do things that would lift the weight of the pandemic off their shoulders.
CPT’s debut production was to be in the first week of November 2020 however due to the second wave reaching its peak, they decided to reschedule and held it in the last week of February this year following all health guidelines strictly.
The team was confident that they could responsibly pull off the show and create a ‘new normal’ for theatre, so after seeking the necessary permission from Public Health Inspectors’ (PHIs), and limiting their audience to only 25 seats per show they also followed a strict self-imposed quarantine of two weeks before the show.
” When we spoke about the plays we wanted to do, I remember all of us suggesting ones that we learnt from or remembered significantly and that is what we wanted to do as well, ” says Saranie talking of late night coffee-fuelled rehearsals, zoom rehearsals, stage preparations and meetings for the logistics of seatings and whatnot.
Starting out: The Clutch Plays Theatre group
How they came up with ‘Boy’s Play’
“There is a website called dramatic publishing, where you can type a few themes and the number of cast, the age etc and it spits out a few plays. I got around 15-10 plays, and Boy’s Play was one of them,” says Director Mayaan Haputantri on how they chose their debut production.
He could see just the synopsis and preview and the first seven pages, but Mayaan felt the play went in a good direction and pulled what he calls a ‘gamble with a wild card’.
Set in the late 90’s, Boy’s Play explores themes of friendship, sexuality and suicide featuring two teenage friends, ‘Tom’ played by Nismath Tasleem and ‘Joe’ played by Heshal Peiris.
They staged it in Mayaan’s home converting his ‘meda midula’ into a scenic forest with artistically placed vines and plants and a ‘multi-purpose’ tree log from his garden. The small stage made the intimate performances by Nismath and Heshal more heartfelt as they were able to connect with audiences effectively.
“At the end of the day, so much of this play and production was unprecedented and we were all testing the waters about everything,” shares Assistant Director Rivi Wijesekera.
The target audience were those in their teens and twenties and they hoped the play would open up conversations on topics such as masculinity, sexuality, mental illness and some ‘taboo’ topics while also drawing in parents who came to watch to realise that their children may be going through the same turbulent emotions they had when they were their age.
A one-act play, with Joe and Tom having a conversation, initially it did not seem there was a lot to unwrap but as the staging, characterisation, direction and other elements that a production entails came together, it became clear that there were many more layers to the play.
“The script had more profanities than I expected and it was a bit hard for me to pull that off at first,” Nismath laughs adding that however after a few read-throughs of both characters, he resonated better with Joe.
“I have a lot of experience acting roles that have sort of a backstory for me to build on but in this case, it was a new challenge for me to imagine what this guy would be like,” Heshal shares. He believes that they got really lucky with a script – although the characters seem one-dimensional, there was more to them than met the eye as the play winds down breaking the stereotypes.
And their future plans? “I’ll try to do a play that I feel would benefit us and the audience at the time,” Mayaan adds.