Von Prahim D. Gupta
26.02.2005 / The Telegraph (Calcutta)
(From top) Berlin, the next city of action; a participant in the mobile phone theatre walks down Hatibagan (picture by Aranya Sen); Anjan Dutt captures the project on camera
How can you know what the bird can't see? Does intimacy start where service ends? Who are you when the phone is ringing? The answers are just a phone call away. A walk down the roads of Hatibagan. A ride through the human psyche. A friction of two worlds.
"Call Cutta - a mobile phone theatre" takes Calcutta to the next level of the art form, where the city becomes the stage and the audience the participant. Produced by Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan and presented by Rimini Protokoll, the non-profit venture is an effort to familiarise the city with the modern innovations in German theatre. The cumulative entrance fees will be used to support a social project in Hatibagan. Says Martin Waelde, director of Goethe-Institut: "Ever since I came to Calcutta, I have been hearing that Brecht is the only playwright performed by the city theatre groups. There has been no sign of any form of contemporary German theatre. With this mobile theatre project, I want to introduce the latest in German theatre to this city."
So how does mobile theatre work? You dial a number (9831880501) and make an appointment. Then you arrive at the steps of the newly-renovated Star theatre in Hatibagan at the time given to you. You pay Rs 40 as the ticket price to the person present there and borrow a mobile phone from him. You'll get a call on that phone and for the next 60 minutes the voice will guide you through the "maze" that is the Hatibagan area. "The voice will become your eyes for that duration of one hour," says Helgard Haug, one of the three directors of the project, alongside Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel. "You see the world through the person making the call. Within minutes you realise that you are not just an innocuous audience but a full-fledged participant in the whole process."
As it guides you through the busy bylanes of the city, the voice starts to weave a tale involving the caller and the receiver. You enter houses, surf at Internet cafes and discover a whole new world. Then comes the Shyamalan-like twist in the tale which leaves you rattled. The people making the calls are nowhere in the vicinity. Seated at a swank call-centre building in Salt Lake, they have no clue who they are calling. All they are equipped with is a power-point presentation of the whole "script" on their computers. Says Ritwika Ray Chaudhuri, one of the callers: "We have snapshots of all possible locations from all possible angles. So technically, we can't go wrong. But the toughest thing is to keep the person engrossed in the whole thing and to make him soak in every nuance of the whole programme. We can also play music and transfer the call to our colleagues if required. While most of it is planned, we have to adjust and adapt to cater to the different kinds of people.
For people who have already done the dummy "walk", it is quite an intriguing experience. Says Dev Nayak, who tried the hour-long "drama" on Tuesday: "It was something very new. I was told on the phone that the passing vehicles are like curtains. I was first checked whether I was colour blind and whether I could distinguish between left and right. From then on it was an amazing journey. I know this Hatibagan area very well. Yet, it all seemed quite new as I looked at everything from the perspective of the caller."
Starting this Saturday, the mobile theatre "tour" is available for everyone till April 30, Wednesdays to Sundays, between 2 pm and 6 pm. "In April, we also start the two-month walk in Berlin," says Helgard. "But interestingly, the same callers of Calcutta will guide the people in Berlin too. We can't take them there. So sitting here in Salt Lake, they will guide Calcuttans in the afternoon and Berliners at night. It will be very interesting to find out whether just by pictures and briefings these callers can make German residents look at their own city in a different light."
With the audience becoming participants, Anjan Dutt's documentary around the mobile theatre will become the only enduring product of the project. "I found the concept quite fascinating and will use it as a take-off point for my film which tries to look at the bigger picture of the two cities, Calcutta and Berlin," says Dutt.
PS: Just in case you are planning to run away with the borrowed handset, well, that's not a part of the script. For you have to deposit some valuables (maybe your own cell phone) before embarking on the joywalk.