This new theatre experience for toddlers will change the way to look the arts

Actor Barkha Fatnani, who plays a little girl in Shaili Sathyu's Chidiya, Udd!, encourages toddlers to engage with objects used in the play

It's commonplace to hear parents whine about how their children can never stay still. So, back in 2007, when Delhi-based theatre director Imran Khan heard of a play being staged for toddlers at a cultural festival in Romania, his first reaction was that of shock. "How can you keep a child glued to a seat from the start till the end?" he remembers asking himself. His curiosity piqued, Khan decided to watch this play for himself. He wasn't, however, prepared for what he was going to witness.

Theatre pedagogue Samta Shikhar says throwing kala channa on stage and stepping on it, made for captivating visuals and sounds for children

"As soon as the performance started, a two-year-old girl, who was sitting along with other kids in the front row, began crying," says Khan. "The weeping child was immediately taken to her father [seated behind]. But, as the play proceeded, I saw the little girl slowly inch forward. By the end of the show, she was actually performing with the actors on the stage," he recalls. It was on that day, when Khan first realised that toddlers could also experience and enjoy theatre like any grown-up.

In My Room, My World, theatre director Imran Khan worked with toys, newspapers and books to show how a father and his six-year-old daughter recreate the room of their fantasies

Having debated over the possibility of staging a play for toddlers in India for years, Khan finally took the plunge last May with My Room, My World, which tells the story of a father and his six-year-old daughter, who recreate a world of fantasy, while organising her toys and books in the latter's room. Khan is not alone. In 2015, Subhashim Goswami directed Bends and Flows - the first toddler play to be staged in India. Since then, over 10 plays have been produced across the metros with Shaili Sathyu's Chidiya, Udd!, which explores the relationship between a bird and little child, premiering recently in Mumbai. Though theatre for toddlers is still relatively new in India, theatre practitioners and artistes reveal why they are most excited about making plays for this new and very young audience.

Dhanendra Kawade used objects associated with water in Nal Jal

Why theatre for tots?
According to Mumbai-based Sathyu, the process of bringing theatre for toddlers in India began almost nine years earlier, when a national workshop on plays for kids was conducted by practitioners from Schnawwl Theatre, Germany, at Ranga Shankara, Bengaluru. Sathyu, who attended the workshop, found the experience an eye-opener. "The whole approach or philosophy of doing theatre for early children is that they also have a right to art and cultural exposure. More and more artistes across the world are advocating for children to be immersed in the arts from a very young age, because it helps build cultural citizenship," she says, adding that unlike other experiences, arts are more open-ended and is a more natural stimulus to a child's growth, as opposed to a regimented one, and should be encouraged.

Communications designer Prerna Bagaria, who recently staged Clay Play in Mumbai, which uses a potter's clay, sounds, music and movements, to create a sensorial treat for children between the ages of two and five, says that the general assumption is that toddlers are a distracted lot. "That's not true," she argues. "When you are having a conversation with a child, they are actually listening to you. And, unlike adults, who have a thousand things going on in their mind, children can give you their 100 per cent attention, if they develop a certain kind of affinity with you."

Relying on sights and sounds
The idea behind theatre for toddlers is not to dumb down content, but to make toddlers more receptive to things they can associate best with, and help nurture this experience. Director Goswami, who is also a sociologist, explains that generally, this theatre employs two schools of thought - one is "about the material, the texture and sounds", and the other is "of the material, and how this material can be used to take the narrative forward".

Several theatre practitioners employ the latter. For instance, Samta Shikhar, who performed in Bends and Flows, recalls how her young daughter once associated the sound of pounding of kala channa with rain, and that's how she and Goswami decided to use channa as their material to recreate a road, and later, rain in their play. Throwing the channa, stepping on it, collecting it again, and spilling it made for captivating visuals and sounds, says Shikhar. Similarly, Khan worked around edible colours, toys and books for the two plays he staged for toddlers.

Dhanendra Kawade, who is the actor and director of Nal Jal, used a tap, water and other daily household objects like mugs, buckets, pipes, glasses and plates to "underline the bond that we share with water". After the play, children are also encouraged to come up on the stage and explore the material. "The idea is to offer them a multi-sensorial experience," says Khan.

In Chidiya, Udd!, Sathyu also relied on sounds, sometimes used to repetitive effect. Her characters speak in different Indian languages, which when strung together make absolutely no sense. But, for toddlers, this gibberish might immediately draw their attention. "It tends to evoke a sense of wonder," she says.

Even the dynamics of theatre for "early children", varies greatly. For starters, the audience size is not more than 20 to 50, and this includes the adults accompanying the toddlers. "The experience is very intimate and hence, you cannot work in a proscenium stage," says Sathyu. The space where the play is staged is also central to how it is experienced. "Smaller spaces work better, because they are less intimidating for the child. How the space is illuminated is also very important, because children can get frightened in darker spaces. They need to be able to see each other and their parents. The idea is to ensure that the child feels safe and welcoming."

Mixed responses
Shikhar says that the first time they staged Bends and Flows, many parents were incredibly anxious and paranoid about whether their kids would sit through the play. "But, not only did the children watch the play quietly, they engaged with us like any regular theatre audience. Later, when we invited the kids on stage, some of them repeated words we had used during the play." She even remembers receiving an email from a mother, who said her child had insisted on keeping kala channa in a dabba in her room.

Kawade says that some of the children get so excited that they also try to get on to the stage. This isn't the case always. "There are times when a kid gets overwhelmed by what he/she sees and begins wailing. At that time, the actor needs to take a call as to how to change the performance. It's a delicate situation," he says. "But, the fact that children dictate how they experience the play, makes it worth it."

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