A group of “rejected actors” after performing “Rasik Sampādak” have been again rejected by the spectators. Their series of unsuccessful performances make them determined to showcase their best, as they cannot let go of their acting even in a space such as an asylum. Being “rejected” becomes their element of encounter with their human condition, as their reality makes them susceptible to extreme vulnerability. These actors have nothing to lose but the burden of their rejection. To overcome their own “rejection”, they have chosen to express the nature of their dream characters—Dracula, Gollum, Annabelle, Kamakshi, Mahisasur Mardini and Jeera Bai. From the perspective of the hawaldaar in the asylum, the nature of unconsciousness and reality gets blurred as all the characters are appearing in his dream. He is accompanied by a rejected poetess (Kamakshi), a Banarsi, an eccentric farmer and a rejected actress. Their gossip (galchaur) is cacophonic and random as they are perplexed and intrigued at the same time by the chaos of whatever is transpiring in the space of asylum.
In this vein, the process-based devised performance (Tarqīb Tamāshā) has tried to weave together the performative praxis from Natyashāstrà, Stanislavskian System and Brechtian Techniques by mapping out a flowchart of eight performative tools—Instinct, Air Pressure Regulation (APR), Emotional Flux, Harqat, Randomness, Dialect, Galchaur and Affective Sublation. These have guided the students’ ensemble to express their performance in the language of tragic-comedy.
