What does your show expose to the audience? The show takes the audience through the inner journey of a relatively minor character in Hamlet, Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia. It presents her in a contemporary setting and explores her personal challenges in a relatable way. It deals with questions of identity, love, power and choices.
How was your show formed? I have always been fascinated with Hamlet, and had the idea of exploring it from Ophelia’s perspective earlier this year. We performed a preview show with a cast of two at Library at the Dock in early July. We revised the script and performed the show with a cast of six to sold-out audiences in New Delhi in August. We added music in the second version. The current version is a revised script again, retaining a lot of elements from the second version but with a cast of two people again.
What does performance mean to you? Connecting with a make-believe world and becoming alive in it, and bringing it to life for my audience. It is about finding the humanness in the characters I play, and becoming one with those characters in a way that genuinely impacts my real life and my journey.
Who is your biggest influence? My biggest influence is Arvind Gaur, an incredibly accomplished director from New Delhi, India. I began my journey as an actor when I trained under him a decade ago, and have remained associated with him and his work to date.
