The title `a landscape'

When the audience waits in theatre and the play is about to start, the audience knows only the title and nothing else about the play. In a way that is good. The audience should not be informed more than that. We know the story and the title is quite appropriate. It does not expose the idea of birds too. It attracts people because many people love landscapes. Everybody has his own memory of the best landscapes seen in his life.

Anyways, the title of the play needs some qualities. They can be summarised in short here:

• It should invite.
• It should create curiosity.
• It should represent the subject and shouldn't be a misleading one.
• It should not be just a wordplay for the sake of it.
• It should be unique and memorable.
• It should be a surprise word and not a simple, commonly used one.
• Better if from the children's vocabulary

The journey of `a landscape'

The story moves from a city to a village.

An urban house...Nest on a tree in the village...Aa nursery in the village... The sky above the village...and a place in the forest near a lake.

The journey of the places is noteworthy. It takes the audience from polluted urban landscape to the rural greenery or little nature-friendly atmosphere. When we imagine about that and the birds tell us the story totally opposite a shocking truth we face. The aim of the script is to make the audience aware of the disastrous changes in the environment.

Another interesting journey

Another journey if you notice, is from a human family to a bird family. Love, affection, and relations are the same. Many dialogues of the little birds are so similar to what little children speak. The audience gets engaged and remembers their little ones. Even some may go to their childhood days. Many of us have this feeling of mixing mornings with evenings after we get up when we were that small.

The storyline

We have to go to the words uttered in dialogues and we know we are discussing the reality:

malls, traffic, mining, Jewellery, 

firecrackers, insecticides, forest fires, deforestation

To balance these facts, we have with us:

a balanced lifestyle, care for others, care for knowledge, books, binoculars

The conflict

We have two sides here. The one of beauty, nature, love, and compassion.

The other is selfish progress, destruction, cruelty, materialism

What do we want to say?

Many times we try to balance two things,

1. What we really want to say?
2. What the audience will like to hear

It is better to stick to number one and say from your heart. Do not hesitate.

How to say that?

Two methods

1. put it in words and elaborate. 
2. Never put it in words but let the actions speak

Here the second we follow. It is easy to put the theme in words but people will not remember that. And that will not make the theatre you will love to do. It is a delicate thought which is difficult to simplify further. As we see in real life, mere words can not take the place of love and care and friendship, etc. So it is better not to utter the moral of the story in words. Actually, you have to weave it in small actions throughout the play.

The end of `a landscape' is very touchy. The burnt bird makes us cry. It connects the human story with the bird story at the end. The play ends with a positive note.

The sets and something special

A house or a forest are seen in many plays but the nest is special for ` a landscape'. The art director and set designers have made a special visual here. They have together created a bigature of leaves behind the bigature* of the nest. Bigature is a term used when we create an image/model more than it's real lifesize dimensions.

Those big leaves make the big children look like small birds. The nest really creates an atmosphere. The bird family sleeping in that small place is a treat to watch. The way they look at each other, take care of each other and have emotional waves of fear, joy, frustration, etc.

Similarly, in the nursery scene, the bigature of lotus makes them small. 

Mavashi actually painted a landscape, an imaginary one in each rehearsal. It became a very good collection. Interestingly she chose to study painting and at present a third-year student in the famous JJ Institute of Art, Mumbai. Theatre has many such stories.

Costumes of birds

Mostly when I see birds in plays to look like real birds a shiny and silky cloth is selected.

But I thought otherwise. As the story turns sad for a long duration on stage I thought the shine of the clothes will not suit the mood of the story. So bought about a hundred meters of Manchester cloth and made the costume. Each bird has the costume in three parts, a cap with a beak, a shirt with wings and a three fourth pant. Colours used on wings were poster colours. You will be surprised to know that the beaks were made up of the old spoilt x-ray films. Colour and beak type differentiated crows, sparrows and, hornbill from each other.

Music

We had three songs in a play. Sometimes we did not take one of the songs. Those had supported with the live music. Children used to sing those with the chorus sound from other students.

Background score was used for the chirping of birds. The other sounds of cutting trees and bulldozers were used. and the sad tune to the narration of Shree sparrow was also used.

Lights

We took care to show the particular hour of the day. Wing lights helped to get evening and morning effects. It was thought that Shree and Srushtee,both get the attention. They are the one who carry the script further.

Makeup

It was interesting to put colours around eyes to have the bird effect. Father and the nurserymen required mustaches.

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