The play lorem Ipsum was set against the realistic hustle bustle of an aircraft. By Utpal K Banerjee
For the terrestrially-bound mortals, the unbound azure sky has always been a terra incognito. To move, to run on earth have been within reach, but to spread wings in the wide open air and fly like avians has been a distant dream — never to be fulfilled. One of the best inversions of this hyperbole — where a despised seagull learns to fly high and picks the ultimate perfection of flying away into the infinity of void — was visualised in Jonathan livingston Seagull.
Penned by Richard Bach, it is a fable about a seagull learning about life and flight. First published in 1970, the novella had, by 1972, over a million copies in print and remains a homily about self-perfection. In 2014, the book was re-issued as Jonathan livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition, telling the expanded legend of Jonathan the seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his ability and can ultimately fly away into the beckoning void.
lorem Ipsum — on Thin Air, the NSD Final Year production under the noted director Abhilash Pillai, inverted the hyperbole once again and visualised man’s imperfection to fly. This was done through two prisms — one of exhilaration of the get-away dream and the other, the counter-gravity nightmare of doom. On the stage was the copy-book reproduction of the modern jet’s interior, complete with the make-belief cockpit of the pilot-duo and the scurrying to and fro of the professional steward and his band of busy air hostesses.
Among the passengers, on one side was the perfectly-imbecile blanket-cover to sneak in a few furtive kisses by the honeymooning couple; the gloating over the free drinks normal in the international flight and the flirting diversion of the pilot with the pretty air hostess, on the other, there was squabble over the spilt jam on the dainty dress by an irate lady passenger.
Also, the inevitable skirmish over the quality and quantity of the served dinner; escalating into the sudden fall to death of the blind passenger while negotiating his erratic way back from the toilet; the popping up of the hijackers — armed to the teeth — diverting the flight-route and then melting away into a fantasy. Indeed the entire atmosphere was full of the flotsam and jetsam of fantasy — bubbling up and disappearing with equal frequency and suddenness — all the while. It all culminated into the jet flight suddenly becoming a space-rocket and zooming into the star-studded outer space.
lorem Ipsum, the intriguing title of the play, was said to be actually a latin term for dummy text used in publishing and graphic design over the last five centuries. Apparently, when an unknown printer takes a galley of type and scrambles it to make a type specimen, he replaces meaningful content with dummy text — allowing to focus only on graphic aspects. loren Ipsum text, it would appear, is not typically nonsensical. It has taken roots from a scrambled section of latin — implying the extremes of good and evil — quite in consonance with the spirit of Pillai’s presentation.
Extracts from interview with the director:
Since the entire mise en scene is specially built as an aircraft, why were the frills enacted outsideIJ
We wanted to create a glamourised scenario of entry into the jet as well as exit out at the arrival lounge with a distinctive choreography. The treatment is distinctly episodic, and not building up to a story. The intention has been to make the narrative fragmented, as an amalgam of multiple experiences.
What is your overall conceptIJ
We have tried to illustrate the dichotomy of sadness and tears of happiness. The content of the play has different nuances running behind flying, disappearance and anecdotes of mankind’s aspiration for flying.
Is there a wider socio-economic angle beyond the anecdotesIJ
Today we know how aircraft symbolise the wealth of a nation; at the same time, we know these aircraft need huge amounts of fuel for flying. I think we are quite aware of the hegemony of nations which have more oil and the war power. Today these aircraft are becoming a weapon for attacking and shattering the harmony of nations. The intensity of turmoil created by a hijack or a pilot’s death on board or a machine-failure not only affects the fellow-travellers in the flight, but for their families and citizens of their nation in totality.