The theatre lovers of the city witnessed a unique solo performance by actress Jyoti Dogra in a theatrical presentation Notes on Chai. Organised by Club literati, she staged the solo performance at Antrang Hall, Bharat Bhavan here on Tuesday.
Featuring the recollection of thoughtful and abstracts of everyday life conversations. The actor through her powerful and impactful body postures takes the audience to relocate the relationship with daily life.
Showcasing deeper connotations with maintaining the exchanges carefully, Jyoti forces the audience to watch her with rapt attention.
Dogra performed in the Grotowski style of theatre that will add an absurd quality to her unconventional techniques of body movement, sound and audience interaction. The characters she portrays illustrated the routines and exchanges that are often encounter, and give the audience short glimpses of contextual sketches.
The performance begins with the autobiographical; while going over the tape of her day’s rehearsals, she is constantly interrupted by thoughts of her routine life and she periodically berating herself for being distracted. Suddenly she portrays a Punjabi wife, talking of her morning chai ritual, having a cup alone in the balcony rather than sharing it with her husband. The communicable word chai morphs into a chant, Dogra’s throat throbs furiously as she borrows from Jerzy Grotowski’s theatre style to represent the tea pot, the tea cup, the act of drinking tea with her hands, her body.
Again she changes to a Punjabi woman who likes the tea a bit thick. Her slurps from the teacup lead to abstract sounds lead to a woman with weight issues, then a government clerk who recites the same thing over and over again. Suddenly, appears a society lady who is enslaved by her appointment diary, her social calendar full of yoga for inner peace and green tea with the right flavor, there is not a single character that cannot be recognised.
The play was much appreciated by the audience as the theater lovers experienced a different solo performance before them.