Manjima's Verbal Diarrhoea and other stories

Writers' Bloc: Muse for playwrights

Mumbai: Indian writers in English have earned their place in the world, and soon Indian playwrights may get centrestage.
The Rage Theatre Company compromising actor Rajit Kapur, theatre director Rahul da Cunha and theatre artist Shernaz Patel are organising workshops called Writers' Bloc which will encourage people to write plays."We have always had English theatre being associated with what is done on Broadway or on West End. We do not really have our own writing to perform in English. And that is really how the thought and the idea began," Kapoor says.
The workshops will infuse new blood in Indian theatre, say the organisers.And for that help is coming in. Carl Miller from the Royal Court Theatre of UK and leading British director Phyllida Lloyd are giving participants tips on how to write."We're trying to give the writers the tools with which to shape what comes into their minds and their imagination into something which works as a play," Miller says.
Good plays will get a stage and the plays of 12 participants, who range from bankers, filmmakers and first-time writers, Writers' Bloc will be staged at the Writers' Bloc Theatre Festival.
"As writers we have a tendency for verbal diarrhoea, so the basic idea is to be able to channelise that and to economise it in such a way that it becomes most effective without it being seen as too little," Manima Chatterjee, a workshop participant, says."We've got creative abilities and we are putting that out on paper. The ability to look back at it and assessing whether it is actually conveying what we want to convey is the key take-away," says another participant Rajiv Rajendra.