By Manjari Kaul
The Water Station is written by Japanese playwright Shogo Ohta (1939-1978). He revolutionized contemporary Japanese theatre in the 1060s by combining traditional Japanese art forms. In 1978 he received Japan's prestigious Kishida Kunio Drama Award.
Shankar Venkateswaran is a graduate of Calicut University School of of Drama & Fine Arts with a specialization in theatre direction. He completed actor training at the Theatre Training and Research Programme, Singapore. In 2007 he founded Theatre Roots & Wings. He subsequently produced the plays- Quick Death, Sahyande Makan – The Elephant Project. The Water Station, the group's latest production is being done in collaboration with The Japan Foundation.
Manjari: Why did you choose to work on a Japanese script? Did you feel there was some cultural similarities that lent themselves to the Indian context?
Shankar Venkateswaran: There is nothing singularly Japanese about this Japanese text. I saw a production of this play and was struck by how this would be an ideal text to work on in India where we have so many languages. To do theatre with a multi-regional cast would be very powerful. In my production a person from Assam has been able to work with a person from Tamil Nadu in a collaboration that is seamless. It is not so because we are excluding words. Words are spoken in the play but they are within, not uttered in the form of sound.
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