Playing-back: Theatre as a Prism for the Pandemic

If one had wandered into a ‘playback theatre’ performance before the pandemic they would have been welcomed by music – by one performer surrounded by instruments – into a semi-circle of performers, one of them distinctly in charge and a stand with colourful fabric. As the audience would be seated, they would complete this circle, ready to share and witness their stories. All these rituals, decades-old traditions of the form, were upended, like most everything else in 2020. Theatre companies around the world had to grapple with questions of how to continue, whether to stop performing or move on screen. [1]

Playback theatre takes personal stories of volunteering ‘tellers’ from the audience, which are then ‘played-back’ through various theatrical tools. This form of theatre results in many deep personal stories surfacing.  Members of the audience, both those who share or don’t share their stories, find catharsis in giving voice to their story, in it being witnessed by others, and having their truth reflected back at them. As India went into lockdown, citylamps playback theatre in Bangalore decided to try finding a new online language. [2] We felt it necessary to bear witness and hold each other through this time, both for our team – as co-performers and friends – and for the communities we serve. To Laxmi, living in a country with an increasingly authoritarian power at the centre, working with individual stories seems extremely significant or insignificant depending on how motivated or despondent she feels. It feels motivating when one can remember the importance of grassroots work through personal stories, such as when we took playback to Bilal Bagh, an anti-CAA protest site in Bangalore. At other times, personal stories seem too less to bring any important change in what seems to be an increasingly exhausting system of authoritarianism. Both of us (Laxmi and Winnu) spent the months between December 2019 and February 2020 on streets, at anti-CAA protest sites across Bengaluru, often  returning home to our rooms only to sleep.

During rehearsals, we worked with our own stories, thus holding space for our co-performers as we all navigated these times together. A month into the lockdown, a teller shared how they noticed the room around them change as the time passed. This metaphor of the changing room has stayed with Laxmi. From a space meant only for sleep, Laxmi’s room has become a space for everything, where she discovered she enjoyed her own company a lot more than she had thought. Both of us have navigated complex relationships with our families. During the pandemic Laxmi has come to want stronger relationships with her sister, mother, and grandfather with whom she shares a house. Winnu realised that the forced togetherness was useful but also used her room as a personal safe haven. Metaphorically, playback theatre is a room that Laxmi has occupied for 11 years but during the lockdown she began to notice the possibilities and limitations more closely. This past year, Winnu’s room has witnessed her many attempts to work – or hide from it. It has become a place to write, dance, playback, act – or take the time to heal.

As we started to perform for the public again (online), the need for playback theatre became abundantly clear. Predictably during this time since many were experiencing unprecedented levels of isolation, fear and hopelessness coupled with an anxious hope for the future, these were the truths that playback performances witnessed. We also witnessed stories of people who gained access to playback theatre for the first time. Those with social anxieties, physical disabilities or illnesses had found it difficult to access playback at social or public spaces; now that everything was online, slower, the world opened up differently for them. It became a space for coming together and creating connections that were hugely different from the ones created in physical proximity. [3]

However, as a company that pioneered online shows, we saw diverse reactions to transporting a live, intimate artform to an online platform which separated and limited performers into individual squares. For one, this space is limited to those who can access it – largely middle class and upwards, English-speaking youth. This was true for both the audience and a large number of our performers, including the two of us. However, for those who had access, opportunities opened up. Waking up at all times of the day and night, we were able to do shows with co-performers and international audiences from the USA to Australia, from Germany to Singapore.

As a form that was founded in the US, few Indian performers had been able to receive training from acclaimed trainers. The pandemic created opportunities for our company to learn with an international community. Playbackers from everywhere shared resources, tools and spaces. This was indicative of the need for global playback community members to keep the form afloat. For new inductees like Winnu, this was a wonderful opportunity to witness discussions and be in rooms that would otherwise have taken years for her to get access to. However, as we went from weeks to months of online playback, questions about what the non-negotiables of good playback theatre are began to arise. Playback rituals had to be adapted not just to include muting and unmuting but screen fatigue. Performers and audience members were possibly returning to empty rooms after co-creating and experiencing something possibly transformative, and that could make them vulnerable. New discussions, still ongoing, tackle what the core ethics of playback are, and how we ensure that these are translated into any medium.

In the months since the first lockdown, the stories have changed. At the beginning we saw people reach out eagerly, or perhaps desperately, to find more than understanding, seeking common ground. If the stories we witnessed are a barometer, as with all truths, people coped by letting the fears for community fade into a background hum. While there is the occasional COVID-related story, it is usually from someone it has affected close to home. We have perhaps viscerally detached from this ongoing threat, and most stories now relate to daily ups and downs and personal journeys — the new reality of zoom, working from home, jobs lost, time with family, memories and learning, love and distance, hopes and fears.

Personal stories are fertile grounds for subjective and grounded research. Sandra Harding’s feminist standpoint theory brings attention to the power hierarchies inherent in ‘objective’ research such as data collection and scientific statistical analysis. Stories can form a complementary force of truth telling to quantitative research, centring on empathetic, self-aware, self-critical research. They point us to the varied individual truths within the dominant social stories of our times and their inherent limitations and gaps. While we continue to work toward these larger aims, playback and city lamps provide comfort, community and support, at least to the two of us.

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[1] A short video about what playback is and looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFvClYJueoU

[2] Some recorded online shows:

April 2020: Mandala Center for Change hosted ‘A Virtual interactive theatre performance & community dialogue combining Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed, featuring the Poetic Justice Theatre Ensemble: https://youtu.be/N4GzsA5VjVA

May 2020: JFK Playback Duo livestreamed their playback show ‘Falling (in Love)’, inviting the audience to discover stories that change us, hijack our mind, force us to move or move on, or just smooth and simple, remind us to childhood, our wishes and fantasies: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3137127513004397&id=256786014369424

[3] Listen to some of the citylamps co-founders speak about how to build a community where vulnerability, empathy and kindness is in abundance: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4HLYmL0KrykSPugc25xb92?si=tmHAMJ_kT3-mdUSKZOKDSg