P. Melodi Dorcas’s Play: Behind the Borders

Dramaturgy & Direction: Petrishia Melodi Dorcas
Group: NSD Student Diploma Production, New Delhi
Language: Non verbal
Duration: 1 hr 10 mins

The Play
Behind the Borders discusses the issue of ‘rage’ in an episodic manner. Throughout the play the issues of lynching, rape, land-occupation, honour killing, and writers’-murders are depicted in a visual vocabulary. This is a new medium of narration to communicate with the audience where each scene has strong images and each image is different from every other in the scene. The music instruments used in the play have a strong interpretation to every scene, depending on how the performer’s body is transforming in every scene and how the bodies that deal with different characters and craft are a part of scene. There is no backstage or green room in Behind the Borders, and the idea of bringing the backstage musicians onto the stage has its own narrative in the scene.

Director’s note
During the process, it was quite a task for us to bring out the visual language of the text we were dealing with. We started improvising each incident from the script. Each one of us came up with different ideas and we started exploring everything. As a collective, we explored different mediums during the process like sound, music, visual installation, durational images, digital narrations, drawings, five senses of the script etc. Behind the Borders is thus a production which is developed by each and every artist of this play collectively. We carried a responsibility of bringing out an ideal production, following the dramaturgy, but later we just went with the flow of the process.

The Director
Petrishia Melodi Dorcas is a versatile artist who graduated from the National School Of Drama, Bengaluru centre, with specialization in Acting. Later she joined the National School of Drama, New Delhi and graduated with specialization in Direction in 2019. She has been working in theatre as a director and actress for the past decade. She is an active participant in social and cultural activities all over India. Currently, she is traveling all over India for her research in the field of theatre to understand the roots and cultures of different parts of India to bring out the importance of various traditional and tribal forms and their contributions to the performer’s body.

The Group
This play is a part of National School of Drama’s graduate showcase of class 2019. It aims to provide a platform to encourage emerging theatre practitioners to share their work with a wider audience.

Cast & Credits
On Stage Anmol Guliani
Bhumisuta Das
Jitu Rabha
Manoj Thapar
Snehlata Siddartha Tagde
Tamilaasi Anandhavalli
Yashaswini R / Silpi Dutta

Recorded Vocal Palin Kabak
Scenography Ramkumar Kannadasan
Property Bhandari Arun
Drawings Elan Cheziyan
Video Vishala R Mahale
Sound Mayengban Sunil Singh
Chreography Petrishia Melodi Dorcas
Lights Sarthak Narula
Poster & Brochure Partha P. Hazarika
Stage Manager Sejuti Bagchi
Music Mayengban Sunil Singh

Dramaturgy & Direction Petrishia Melodi Dorcas

Contacts
P. Melodi Dorcas
M: +91 9840359239
E: phenomenalmelodi@gmail.com