Stage Eight’s latest production Pollution, written collaboratively by Sagnik Mukherjee and Dibyojyoti Das, revolves around a mother and her child and with the story of a young man named Arun and his fear of the rising levels of pollution in the city. The reluctancy to venture out and finding himself caged within four walls form the crux of the play as he struggles for a cure. In a discussion over a call, we were granted a peek into the thoughts, minds and the hard work that went into making the play. Mr. Mukherjee cites the inspiration of the play to be in an article he had read in The Telegraph and also refers to a play that his thespian mother had watched years back dealing with an over-protective mother and her son.
Pollution is a story which everyone can relate to being grounded in and nuanced with everyday life of simple ‘very regular Bengali’ family while talking about the mental health and how people are being affected.
“Pollution is something different… “
The creators are excited in the direction they had taken in the setting of their stage, for they chose to take a different approach than what they had previously done, opting for zonal divisions, that is dividing the stage into zones and using lighting to showcase different storylines moving forth parallelly rather than the sets changing with the scenes.
According to Shritama Saha, portraying the role of a psychiatrist, Pollution is something different from what they usually do for it deals with the burning problem of mental health and the fear in people to open up.
The play will be staged at Tapan Theatre on 17th May 2018 from 6:15 pm. Do drop in to watch this one as it deals with everyday life and what lies within it.
– Ayush Biswas, Angshuman Dutta
theplaybookinitiative.wordpress.com 