Theatre festival showcases plays made for kids between six months and six years

Choiti Ghosh performs in Oool

Imagine a baby in a pram or a toddler in their mother's lap enjoying a theatrical performance, not because the venue lets kids in but because the play has been specially made for the youngest of the young. Early Years Theatre (EYT) has its roots in the UK of the late '70s when artistes realised that certain elements of children's theatre weren't appropriate for younger audiences that otherwise enjoyed a live performance.

A scene from Warp & Weft

Early start
Though the genre is yet to come into its own in India, new strides have been made in the field in the recent years. And to celebrate this development and treat little Mumbaikars aged between six months and six years to the already existing wealth of performances, Tram Arts Trust (TAT), Extensions Arts and Harkat Studios have organised the Baby Theatre Festival with plays to be staged on every Sunday of June.

"There is something amazing about watching a child experience theatre for the first time. It involves alertness of all senses. Parents have come and told me, 'I have never seen my child sit and watch something for 30 minutes'," reveals Choiti Ghosh, object theatre artiste, puppeteer and the artistic director of TAT, adding that she has come across 20-odd EYT productions in India in the last two years. "And this is just what we know of, which is why fests like these should happen all over the country," she adds.

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What separates EYT from other forms of theatre is the former's reliance on non-verbal communication. "Storytelling through words and plot points don't work here. You have to identify the things that are a part of the world of the toddler and how they respond to them. The duration of a performance is usually not longer than 30 minutes," explains Ghosh.

All eyes on the stage
The festival will showcase four productions from Mumbai and one from Delhi, and most of them are centred on raw material. While Sananda Mukhopadhaya's Warp & Weft is about a child up to mischief while waiting at a fabric store, Plasticity by Tadpole Repertory explores how there is much more to plastic than what meets the eye. Prerna Bagaria's Clay Play, as the name suggests, lets kids get creative with clay, Dhanendra Kawade's Nal Jal presents water in a new light and Oool performed by Ghosh is all about wool and its many possibilities.

A scene from Nal Jal

"We don't pay enough attention to how the simplest of things fascinate children. Their perception of colours, material and objects opens up their imagination. The idea is to make kids' engagement with art experiential, and not learning-driven as has been the case in India," shares Karan Talwar, co-founder of Harkat Studios, who plans to make the festival a six-monthly affair and commission EYT plays for the same.

What goes on in the mind of a toddler, Ghosh admits, is difficult to fathom. "But there is complete absorption, followed deciphering and assessing on a sensory level," she says. "After the show of Nal Jal, children go up and touch water as if it was gold. Water is never the same for them again."

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