Chennai’s first international theatre festival for a young audience rocked the stage of the Government museum theatre. Conducted by the Little Theatretroupe, ‘Garage Gang’was the theme from July 5 to 8 and it featured the art of physical theatre comedy with a duration of two hours.
Gingo, a naughty little girl, visits her grandfather’s garage often to play with him and his quirky and eccentric bunch of mechanics. However, she comes to the garage with an unusual request of needing their help to complete her story writing homework that was due the very next day. The mechanics put their heads together and use everything they have in the garage to help Gingo create a story.
This show has been in production for the last three years and has gone through many versions. Since it’s a physical comedy theatre, they use a lot of clowning elements, which makes timing and presence of mind to be the key elements for the humour to work perfectly.
“What goes without being noticed is the amount of practice to make it look so easy and simple. The actors work a lot on being physically fit in order to be able to professionally perform their art,” said Ayesha, the group’s PR. “We are possibly the only theatre company in the city to do two big productions back to back while winning the hearts of the audience with a standing ovation,” she said.
The backbone of the play (managing director, script writer, lighting and set designer and stunt choreographer) KK, who played the role of ‘Thatha’along with the role played by Kavya Ramachandran for Gingo caught the eye with their commendable performance and increased audience participation. One of the attractive aspects of the show boils down to how engaged the audience felt with the varied number of people entering the stage by surprise.
“I was awestruck and excited when I was called onto the stage to be a part of the play for a period of two minutes. Not only did it make the show interesting, it made sure everyone paid enough attention to know what’s happening and enjoy every tad bit of the show” said Pooja Rohra, a member of the audience.
The work of dance choreography by Vikas Rao and sound and lighting system were added bonus points to make the show captivating as well. “The dance practice and coordinated movements took us months to accomplish and it has taken insane levels of hard work to set the timing and phasing of the group right.” said Vikas.
Little Theatre, focused on helping children overcome the stress of schoolwork through high quality theatre productions and create workshops, is on a roll with its back-to-back shows conducted at the same venue. The next play in line is the ‘Black Balloon’ that takes place from July 9 to 11.
