Written by Sudipta Banerjee and Namrta Dhar, “On The Swing” doesn’t stick to any particular genre of Navarasa but to life ! - An emotive love story that surfaces with Shringar, Hasya, Rudra, Karuna, Vatsalya and Bibhatsa, and much more from what we can relate in our personal lives. The story is inspired by episode of true life-stories and is knitted as one. Initially paced slow, the story picks momentum as it unfolds and takes the audience through a roller-coaster of varied emotions that they can relate with happenings in their own individual homes.
“On The Swing” captures a life span of the story of its characters, highlighting an emotive love story of Reema Banerjee, a typical Indian girl form a small town in Howrah stricken with typical Indian cultural beliefs. Set in an upper class household, it is a dream come true journey of Reema from small town in West Bengal to capital of India. However, in the entire transformation, she is chained to her belief system, fears and seeks solace or “Shanti” on the swing which is her embodiment of a company. As her life passes through set life-stages, she sorts her life but in an unwitting and untoward manner – just like many of us.
“On The Swing” is also the story of Dev Banerjee, a successful novelist who has made it big in Bengali literary field. Driven by logic and unaffected by the norms of the world, he is man living by his own philosophies and his individualism is loaded with wit and sarcasm. Deeply rooted to his hometown yet aware of the whereabouts of the world, Dev finds radical ways of living life for himself and for others.
“On The Swing” is a very sensitive script, rightly peppered with wise cracks and sarcasm and a fine dressing of regular Indian household drama, this is a dream-come-true play for any director. Every time we read the lines and enact the play, it evokes different hues of an emotion. Given the strong story and script, we are starting with two shows, but plan to have many more shows. We look forward to audience taking back something they find unique to their own lives.
Namrta Dhar
Story, Co-Director and Lead Female Actor
Having studied and performed theatre for the last couple of years, Namrta’s interest in “On The Swing” is largely owing to her personal belief in presenting meaningful art forms, especially theatre. She makes her directorial debut along with Amit Kulkarni for “On The Swing” and is excited about the experiments of the play. While the play is implicit when it comes to communicating a message, she believes that the audience will definitely gain from the story and expects different people to have unique take away-s.
While traversing through circumstances that finally define what life is and provide a flavor of everyday occurrence that they can relate to, the play touches upon various issues and ironies of life including individualism, priorities, loving and letting go, choices, yielding to societal pressures and so on, says Namrta.
Amit Kulkarni
Co-Director, Music Director
Best of both worlds doesn't come together as easily as it does in the personification of this serious amalgam of music and drama. An exponent of Hindustani classical with immense dexterity in Samvadini, and one of leading front-runners of dramatics and musicals at Natyankur Theatres, Amit draws parallels in both. His characterizations and treatments have been experimental in nature, and inspired by music.
Amit’s tendency to apply musical concepts of Aaroha and Avaroha to the flow of drama increases the eventual intensity and brings about a sense of completeness. The build-up of the flow and intensity in such experiments can be equated with the anticipation of an oncoming crescendo in an orchestral performance. Amit's approach is meant to touch audiences at two levels, one is via intellectual stimulation; and the other is a much deeper, subconscious introspective inquiry which is cathartic in essence like music.
Sudipta Banerjee
Story
Sudipta Banerjee has a passion for storytelling and ‘On The Swing’ developed as an idea which not only means a different attempt for a play but also a challenge to enact, during conversations with Namrta. They got together during their theatrical training days, to write an original script, drawing inspirations from true incidents around them, of their own lives, from friends, family and so on, and fine tuned it over a period of over a period of one year. Interspersed with imagination, these stories fell in place just like a sorted jigsaw puzzle and became a single story. There is, hence, nothing very new or out of the world, yet something very real and meaningful touching various aspects of life, ideologies and society subtly. When we narrated this story to our friends they were astounded even though it was just another story. We hope that when we enact it, we will be able to cause the same effect. The performance will surely be a bigger challenge and we keep our fingers crossed, says Sudipta.
Musten Jiruwala
Lead Actor
Musten Jiruwala made his theater debut in 2005 with Join The Dots group, primarily to contribute to meaningful theater that can make audiences think. Since then, he has acted in 6 plays and directed one. Musten often ruminates on out-of-the-box ideas for living and hence introspects deeply on various aspects of life. His idea of how wrong doings of the past can instill fear that can ruin the present was well captured in the play Spotlight. Or, how the epic Julius Caesar is relevant in today's time was presented in his directorial debut 'Et tu...'.
On The Swing has some very interesting views on society and relationships which inspired Musten to take up the challenge.
