On 19th August 2017, my play Bare Bones was
staged in Baroda. And it would be an understatement to say that Baroda audience
absolutely wow'ed us.
I had often heard about the cultural wisdom and artistic
acumen of Baroda citizens. But to experience it first hand was something else,
and hence I'm compelled from within to write this little piece in your
appreciation.
The frequent chuckles at the mildly funny lines, the
occasional roaring laughter at the really funny lines, the loud applause at
times, the sporadic 'wow's that we could hear at those deep lines, which made
me - the writer - proud of your understanding of the layers beneath the text,
the meaningful silence during the intense moments, and to end it all with the
standing ovation and the final applause that didn't stop for two full minutes.
While we as actors customarily stand after the show, the
feeling within me was that we, the actors, were giving a standing ovation to
you, the audience, even as you were reciprocating.
The writer writes, and director directs hoping that they'd
get an audience that would understand the unsaid, and experience the unstated.
And I felt that Baroda gave us that experience which will be extremely
difficult to beat.
The audience loved Bare Bones so much that a couple of them wrote
wonderful blogs for it. Prakash Gowda wrote it like a hate story, and Shalini wrote it like
the two characters in one of my short plays, Where Heart meets Mind. Thank you so much Prakash and Shalini for your kind words.
A vote of thanks to Applause Vadodara for inviting us there. Without you, this would not have been possible.
