Where else have you seen that costume? Why does the flooring look familiar? Srishti Ray has some answers.
The concept of hand me downs has been something that has, well… been handed down from one generation to the other. From grandparents passing down bedtime stories to siblings sharing books and clothes, it’s a rather familiar practice in Indian households.
And apparently in the theatre too. Given that most theatrewallahs pride themselves on jugaad (life hacks), borrowing items from friends and family makes it to the top of the list when it comes to sourcing a prop, set or costume.
AkVarious’ Dekh Behen 2 for instance, needed a huge pile of clothes for the mise-en-place of a particular scene. Instead of buying or crowdsourcing them, they dug out their costume inventory from 20 years ago. And just like that, the past breathed life into the present, the characters we were familiar with found themselves in the future amidst characters we were about to meet for the first time. Similarly the stools from their play Some Times (2012) arrived, repainted and refurbished, for the premiering show of External Affairs earlier this year, bringing with them a kind of warmth that well-worn objects tend to carry.
Borrowing set and prop elements from one play for another, is a very common practice. A custom gurney built for a production from the UK – Hela (2014), found itself on the set of Wildtrack (2016),
and years later at The American School, Bombay. The light boxes that once illuminated the struggles of peasants in QTP’s A Peasant of El Salvador now cast their glow on stories of queer identity in Studio Tamaasha’s Beloved, and often brighten up the Prithvi House every December during the annual youth theatre festival, Thespo. The guns that took away Mother Courage’s children from her in Mother Courage and Her Children (2017) are also the ones wielded by the watch guard’s in A Few Good Men (2018).
And it appears that the afterlife of these building blocks of a play, also lend themselves to building of spaces. Every time someone walks into Harkat Studios, they actually set foot into the world of A God of Carnage (2015). When they sit on the wooden stools at Rangshila, they sit beside the characters of Pah-Lak (2023).This transfer and handing over of objects, sets, costumes etc makes for a sustainable way of life within the theatre, no doubt. But these hand me downs end up holding a lot more significance to the individuals, plays and spaces they are given to. Saying goodbye is tough, whether it is a person you’re bidding farewell to or a labour of your love. The objects they leave behind then become a tangible form of the love that was shared, a part of them that we get to carry with us as we grow and evolve. There is something bittersweet about walking into a space and being reminded of another place in time that you held dear. Perhaps that is why the theatre invites moments of catharsis, plays are basically a mosaic of things that have ended, new beginnings, farewells and love that's kept changing. Srishti is passionate about all performing arts - music, dance and theatre. She primarily works with QTP as an associate producer and mentors the team running Thespo, QTP's youth theatre initiative. She loves the live medium of storytelling and finds joy in building shows!