Page 25 - VIS - Newsletter

October/2023

BRIGHTER STILL, A LOOK BACK

Things are finally looking ready to move to the
stage! Twenty-three students of grades 5 and 6
are in sukhasana position on the circular stage,
hands in chin mudra, chanting ‘Buddham
sharanam gachhami,’ and as their voices fill the
evening air, I feel the old thrill of working on a

play with children … the sense of creative
possibilities, the magic of finer and finer
performances unfolding over several iterations,
much like sculpting.

It’s a play I have done before, about twenty years
ago, a script created from a Jataka tale titled
‘Brighter Still’, retold by Graeme MacQueen. I

have happy memories of that performance, and
when my colleague says she feels the story will
work well for Theatre Nite, the culminating event
of Language Week at VIS, the decision is clinched

My mind is soon busy casting the children in roles
that will suit them … the sixths will make great
villagers, the fifths will make lovely dancing deer,
Aadithya should be the comical King Brahmadutta Individual scenes start taking shape, and the
who has a change of heart, Sai Nallan and narrators keep the storyline moving, but the
Parvesh can become the two deer kings, transitions, oh! The transitions are so troublesome.
Sudarshana will do well as the pregnant doe, and When will we remember the sequence just so, and
Harsha and Chandra can be the Courtiers … it’s all achieve a smooth flow? Then there is the business

falling in place! Then who will be the narrators? … of learning dialogues, giving up reliance on
Let the actors come forth also as narrators! That’s scripts, perfecting one’s position and stance,
the last tentative decision, and it works out well. getting the articulation and intonation right,

showing one’s reaction when others speak, and
The old script is reworked; the narration is shaped always remembering, if one is a deer or a

into rhyming couplets so the storytellers can have courtier, not to lapse into being just a child again
fun rendering their lines in pairs. Also, more when one’s lines are done.
dialogues are sewn in, so each participant has a
speaking part, however small.

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