Silent Serenation: A Review of 'The Water Station'

By Manjari Kaul

The Water Station, a play performed by the group, Theatre Roots & Wings, Kerala is commissioned by The Japan Foundation, was performed on the 14^th of January 2012 at Bharat Rang Mahotsav, organized by National School of Drama, New Delhi.

The play info brochure reads: 'The Water Station is a two-hour, wordless performance. Walking through a barren landscape, eighteen travellers stop by at a dripping water faucet. They drink, soak, meet, love, fight, weep, separate and in the end, leave, while a man living in junk pile observes their action from above. Abounding in images of fragmentation and decay, the play depicts the decline and fall of human civilization. The play is about loneliness, the need for sustenance and the fragility of love.'

The travellers etch out their “being” as they perform in slow motion, in silence (apart from the constant trickle of the tap and a few musical interjections). The absence of dialogue and slowness of the actors' movement triggers off the imagination of the audience. Every moment is stretched out to bring to the audience's notice, the weight of time that one often attempts to fill up with the illusion of love, happiness and significance.

All the travellers who pass by try to create their own relationship with the water faucet in attempts to define or shrug off their identities. Each of them plays out as if a stage of human life. It opens with the girl in a frock carrying a satchel who drinks water and then watches the two middle aged men kiss as they fight for the water; followed by a woman with a parasol; then enters a couple carrying a pram filled with junk who's urgent lovemaking is interrupted by an old woman who dies after quenching her thirst; a family of travellers experience a deeply stirring moment in which makes them let out a silent scream; a man and woman who bathe at the tap and attempt to fill the void in their beings with an embrace, end up in the woman experiencing a violation which is stifled by the man; a man with a huge load brushes his teeth at the tap to the rhythm of arabesque music that stops abruptly. In a rare moment of brightness on a dimly lit stage, the actors are struck by shock and grief. Their agony is immense but they must keep walking on.

The pile of rubbish on stage symbolizes the decay of life. The pile comprises a walker, suitcase, table fan, bicycle wheel – a heap of human discards. The actors work out a mechanics of symmetry and rhythm- a tight rope walk performed immaculately in their journey that seems like still music.

The play ends where it began- with the little girl wearing the satchel. This draws our attention to the cyclical nature of life. The Water Station is a metaphor for life that plays out in a loop of events to a melancholic tune and the monotonous dripping of a water tap. The play challenges our notions of theatre, its role and connect with basic human existence.

-Manjari Kaul

Cast and Crew of The Water Station:

Playwright: Shogo Ohta

Director: Shankar Venkateswaran

Cast: Moon Moon Singh, Ravindra Vijay, Sunil Bannur, Asha Ponikiewska, Anirudh Nair, Kavita Srinivasan, Yeshwanth Kuchabal, Scherazade Kaikobad, Smitha P., Kavita Srinivasan, Ishwari Bose-Bhattacharya, Mandakini Goswami, Sunil Bannur, Vinu Joseph, Sunitha, Siddharth Mishra, Shankar Venkateswaran.

Scenography and photography: Delijo Thekkekkara

Set Advice: Sujathan

Lights: Jose Koshy

Sound: Shankar Venkateswaran

Technical Direction: Prabhath Bhaskaran

Production: Anil Ramachandra, Anish Victor, Satoko Tsurudome

Images courtesy Delijo Thekkekkara