So, what's cooking?

Take any of Roysten Abel’s productions — whether it is Othello In Black And White, Flowers, The Manganiyar Seduction or A Hundred Charmers — and you’ll realise that each of his creations tells stories that aren’t customised to suit what the market wants. He’ll even tell you the same thing. His productions are his stories, except for maybe Othello, which takes the Shakesperean story to a completely different level. Therefore, you won’t know what to expect. You’ll know it will be good, maybe even a little complex for the uninitiated, but you would not be able to predict what’s going to happen. And that is the beauty of theatre.

His latest production, The Kitchen, being presented by The Himalaya Drug Company is going to walk the same line. Picking up inspiration from life and relationships, this presentation takes two very different actions and puts them together — cooking and music.

The play has two lead characters, in a kitchen, cooking the paal payasam. And as they cook, the couple take a second look at their relationship, making an effort to perhaps work out their differences and find solutions to their life together. But that’s not all, as the delicate dessert simmers on stage, mizhavu drummers will create magic on their drums, which the director states is a cooking of another kind.

What really draws this writer/director to a process that is, without a doubt, slightly removed from the mainstream methods of theatre? “I view theatre as a communal experience. It has to be experienced by everyone. And secondly, you don’t want to perform to a market. That’s terrible. Sure, it will make you sustain your profession and give actors employment but it’s stagnant. So if you’re performing comedies for a corporate audience all the time, you will get stuck there. The idea is to create an experience that has not happened before,” he says.

On choosing the paal payasam as perhaps the protagonist of the play, Roysten explains, “After an intense course of medication, one normally craves for something sweet to balance out the palate. The paal payasam is served in Kerala during special occasions and served in temples as prasad, to literally sweeten the palate. And I want every show of this play to be a special occasion. And yes, the audience will get the chance to taste it.”

Choosing the mizhavu drummers to provide the music was a strategic choice as well. “Kerala has a range of percussions. But each time I watched a Koodiyattam performance, the mizhavu drew me to it in a particular way. The myths and beliefs behind this instrument, the stories of its origin, really appeal to me. Did you know that this instrument is nearly two thousand to three thousand years old? It’s the only instrument that has a caste and is known to be a brahmachari; it is even given a thread ceremony.

When a mizhavu drum can no longer be played, it is given a proper funeral! While the religious hierarchy and politics behind the arts at that time prevented no one but the Nambiars from playing it, today others can play the mizhavu (even though the Nambiars continue to play it in the temples). The mizhavu is also the only percussion that can be taken inside the mantapa of a temple and when played, at its peak, it sounds like the Omkara — just like the sounds of the movement of the Universe. This is the sound that connects you to an inner rhythm.”

That’s how Roysten likes to work — differently. And while his public profile reads like a success story straight out of Hollywood, his life with theatre hasn’t been easy.

“Right theatre is very hard to find. Unlike cinema, which can cater to millions of people at the same time, theatre has limited audiences. And theatre in India is a very difficult thing because it has no support system. For example, a few South Amercian and Asian countries have some kind of state support.

Here there is nothing. There is some kind of a government grant but it is so small that it’s unfair. I have never taken that grant but to be more than honest, I have also been fairly lucky. I had an idea I believed in and from somewhere the money came. This of course includes borrowing from friends! And my productions got picked up internationally. That helped me a lot. I got some money to do more work. Or else I would have probably quit by now,” Roysten says.

Incidentally, Roysten doesn’t like to work with scripts. “There’s no writing; all my productions are just an idea. There is a narrative in mind but it’s hard to express the details to the actors. One just tries to get them to that place. A lot of trial and error has gone into this particular production. The musicians are from Kerala, the actors are from Delhi and to get them together in Bangalore —  a lot of flying in and out has happened. But this is what I like most about theatre — the coming together of the story and all the other elements such as the sets, the lights, the music. And of course, the unpredictability of it,” adds Roysten.

“I was thinking about this 20 days ago about how in theatre, everything has to happen at the right time for it all to come together perfectly.”

Where: Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar

When: 7.30pm, August 1 to 4

For: Rs 200 per ticket

For tickets: Log on to www.bookmyshow.com

Call: 9845602265 or 9448279252