Shena Gamat is a theatre practitioner from Delhi with over 15 years of stage experience. She has worked with directors such as Lushin Dubey, Anamika Haksar, Roysten Abel, Sohaila Kapur and others. She was head of the Youth and Culture programme at Society for Labour and Development and show running director for the show ZANGOORA at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon. Currently she is the director at Barefoot, a theatre group she runs. Ahead of her play titled I LOVE YOU, LET'S HAVE SEX, we speak to her about the show, her inspiration, audience responses and more.
By Nishtha Juneja
Nishtha Juneja (NJ): What inspired you to come up with a piece about relationships? Was it borne out of some personal experiences? Shena Gamat (SG): Tali (my boyfriend when we started doing the play and my husband now) and I have been in a relationship for a long time. And, like in all relationships, there were occasional fights and arguments. But once, an argument escalated and quadrupled into a full-fledged fight. It was right after the argument that I penned down some of my feelings, which sort-of became the script for the play. After that incident, we visited counsellors and spoke about our relationship to some friends as well. The script was kept at the back-burner. It was not until another year that we thought of taking the drama forward and brainstorming about it. A fair bit of research went into it, where we spoke to people and relationship counsellors. Also a lot of introspection helped put the piece together. The play offers insights into how relationships work and the changes we can make as individuals to help find connection and empathy with each other.
NJ: You mentioned that it is a devised and interactive piece where you talk about love, relationships, and sex. How do you go about performing it? SG: I always found it funny that in theatre the actors perform, and the audience watches the show, claps and goes away. So, with this piece I decided to break the fourth wall, and make it interactive. The play is 70 minutes long with a prelude, which is performed by Shivam Pradhan. His solo act entails going on a date, getting his heart broken, and then recovering from it. Most of it is enacted through mime. He also dances on stage with women from the audience and warms up the audience for the act.
After his solo act, I and Ashish Paliwal take the stage as Nidhi and Vishal respectively. We are in a relationship and end up fighting. That is when we bring a couple from the audience on to the stage and act the rest of the drama with them. There is a lot of improvisation as we do not know the direction the play will take.
We also step down from the stage and sit with the audience and chat. In this way, people start sharing interesting details that add to the quality of the performance.
NJ: The title of the play is in-your-face, and people could mistake it for a sex comedy, which it is not. What were your thoughts when you decided on the title? SG: Initially, I did not think much about the title of the play. But it is funny and quirky, and we thought of going with it. We opened the performance at the Delhi Contemporary Arts Festival 2014 to amazing reviews. Since then, we have been performing it in intimate spaces such as bars, studios, restaurants, private residences and more. But the title kind of proved as a double-edged sword. It was surprising to notice that we were asked to change the name of the play as some venues thought it was a sex comedy. But then I wanted to stick to it even more. Another reason why we named the play so was that I believe that relationships should be as simple as saying, ''Hey, I love you'' or ''Let's have sex.''
NJ: You said you received positive response from the audience. Can you share an interesting incident? SG: The play can appeal to a 16-year-old as well as to an elderly couple. Most of the people thank us after the performance saying that they would get their better half the next time it is playing. Only recently we performed at someone's house, and a lady was mesmerised by the show. She said, ''Suddenly all the blocks fell together''. I think the play is insightful and provides answers to a lot of problems we face in our relationships.
*Nishtha Juneja likes to act and write about theatre. Nishtha Juneja is passionate about dance and food and has completed a post-graduate diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute for Communication (XIC).
