The Other Festival - 2001  
     Dec 1- 7, 2001. Museum Theatre, Chennai (Madras) India.  
    Music. Dance. Drama. Art. You.
     
    DECEMBER 4, 2001, 8 pm
    THEATRE, “THE TYPISTS” (70 mins)   
     
     
    ATUL KUMAR has been in theatre as actor and director for over 18 years. He has worked extensively with Compagnie Philippe Genty in Paris and Sacramento Theatre Company, California. He also has a wide television and film experience. He is President of The Company Theatre and Director of EVAM- the International Centre for the Performing Arts, Lonavla, where all visual and performing artistes can practice and research independently and in collaboration with other related fields. "Theatre at Home" series started in May 2000, where we perform a short play every weekend at a residence in Bombay 

    “The Typists” is an hour-long transformation scene in which one very simple, progressive image (actors ageing before our eyes) captures the futility of life better than many ambitious, full-length plays. The relentless decrescendo of the typists’ day is accompanied by all the fervent trivia, which are the language of our lives, and the condensation-device registers this with savage clarity. The play conveys an almost Chekovian sense of dulled routine and empty rituals and, like Chekov, it demonstrates the utter impossibility of acting upon profound personal perceptions which cry out for positive action. The psychoanalytic parlor game- I’ll tell you what is wrong with you- You tell me what is wrong with me- is played with brutal and unflagging regularity in all our modern circles where a couch is a piece of psychic rather than domestic furniture. And it is this sense of being trapped in the midst of total consciousness, which creates the pathos in the lives of Schisgal’s Typists. 

    Very obviously inspired by the Theatre of the Absurd, the play takes a looks at our redundant human condition in a tragic-comic manner. 

    Credits: 
    Actors: Paul: Zafar Karachiwalla; Sylvia: Yuki Ellias 
    Directed by : Atul Kumar, The Company Theatre Production 

    Contact: akumar@bom7.vsnl.net.in 
     

    • What is The Other Festival?   
    • Critics Speak on The Other Festival   • 2001    
    • Photo Gallery of The Other Festival   • 2001