CONTACT PLAYWRIGHT

Synopsis

Years ago, I was invited to a meeting at the US Consulate office in Madras (now Chennai) for a discussion on a visiting American theatre production. The Officer’s cabin overlooked Gemini Circle, with the flyover dominating the scene. The traffic on the flyover and below was at its peak at that time of day, but could not be heard inside. On the curved pavement below there was a line of young people, mostly young men and women, forming an orderly queue hugging the wall of the Consulate premises. It was the season! I imagined the light disappearing all around the wall, the traffic thinning to a trickle, the street lamps coming on and the queue just beginning to form at 4 am. A play was born. July is the student emigration season in most developing coun­tries. Anybody who has stood in a queue for a visa at a US Consulate office in India will know what that means. Yes, the play does have something to do with the emigration of bright young people from India to silicon pastures. But, no, it is not meant to be a statement about "brain drain" or some such phenomenon of great politico‑economic significance. That task is left to others more adapted to it – perhaps the audience. This play is content with the exploration of an idiom. Is that the word? Perhaps not. It cannot be so academically neat. Perhaps what is needed is to rescue natural imagery from the banishment it commonly receives. The performing group is advised to concentrate on the images to be created, move away from novelty, and arrive at an earnestness to play it. In Part 1 of the play all the characters speak a gibberish that has an undercurrent of meaning. Part 2 is set in the US. It is 10 years later. All characters speak normally. Salt Licks and Head Start are constructed as 2-part plays. Either part can be performed by itself as a one-act piece. Together they make a full length play. People have preferred to do the two parts together.

Duration

85   Minutes

No of characters

7