{"id":2307,"date":"2020-12-17T10:05:45","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T05:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2022-05-06T13:15:44","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T08:45:44","slug":"theatre-to-bring-auroville-into-perspective-jesse-from-miraculous-productions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/theatre-to-bring-auroville-into-perspective-jesse-from-miraculous-productions\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre to Bring Auroville into Perspective: Jesse from Miraculous Productions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Theatre performances in Auroville are a treasured event, with the whole community gathering to watch and enjoy the diverse work put up by Aurovillians and travelling theatre groups. These beloved shows include the classics like Shakespeare, famous work from modern playwrights, Indian Theatre and then the Auroville Originals. To delve a little deeper into what some of these Auroville productions are like, we spoke to Jesse, who has been doing theatre in Auroville for a number of years, alongside his father, Johnny. Together they created \u201cMiraculous Productions\u201d, which has produced an array of original theatre pieces and a few short films as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Theatre that Satisfies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
It all started when Jesse was a kid in Auroville, taking part in plays written by Johnny. He doesn\u2019t remember liking it all that much. \u201cHe (Johnny) would write the plays and we kids would be acting in it. I hated every second of it (laughs<\/em>). I found it incredibly painful and the characters I was playing, I found them embarrassing.\u201d But after the age of 15, Jesse moved to Australia where he eventually joined a performing arts school for ballet and theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Theatre became his focus in University when he joined the Dramatic Society, and soon he was able to work alongside a group of individuals all in love with the performing arts. \u201cWe had our own theatre and a budget. It was super useful for me because I was able then to identify exactly what kind of theatre I wanted to do. The stories I like are ones that satisfy you. I don\u2019t like the idea of \u2018It asks more questions than it answers\u2019, I don\u2019t want that kind of story. The satisfying, self-contained piece of narrative that appeals to the hard-wired mythological form that we have in our brain somewhere, that is the theatre I want to make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Miraculous\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Jesse decided to come back to Auroville in 1996, he started working with his father again. \u201cI was now writing and producing plays with my father. In the beginning we were doing plays that we would write and rehearse in a week\u2019s time. We would start with 30 kids, with either a very rough idea or no idea at all, produce the whole thing by the end of the week and perform it on stage. They weren\u2019t the best production values of course, but we would have huge audiences and they seemed to really enjoy themselves.\u201d As time passed, responding to the needs of the kids and other crew members, the style of the production changed. \u201cWe worked out that the kids wanted more structure and written scripts, instead of a framework under which they would improvise. So then we started to write scripts, and responded to all feedback of the people working with us. So every production after that would go up a notch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One might think that working with a crew of more than 50 people is too difficult and can be an obstacle, but for Jesse, it\u2019s the opposite. \u201cI think there is something within human beings, the thing that makes us the most genuinely fulfilled, satisfied and complete is working together. Working together, in a voluntary way, a group of people doing something together and that no one is getting paid. When you\u2019re all working for free, there is this mutual respect in the air and there\u2019s something about it that\u2019s just ancient and true. So that\u2019s it for me, every production we\u2019ve done, it\u2019s the process, it\u2019s the satisfaction of the time you spent together as the crew, putting it all together that\u2019s important. It\u2019s just so joyful to have ideas and express them and watch it grow and form, with the input of everybody else involved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Poetry into Play<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creative process to bring these stories to life and stage start with a poetic concept. For Message in a Bottle, their most recent production, it was no different. \u201cMy father is very poetic in his ideas. He began with the concept of wanting to talk about the 12 tribes of Auroville, he wanted to comment on the subcultures of Auroville. My approach is to take his poetic ideas and frame them into a narrative, a story. What we need then is to take each of these subcultures, put them in a landscape and give our protagonists a reason to move through this landscape and encounter the subcultures, that\u2019s how the idea for Message in a Bottle came to be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But doing theatre isn\u2019t always easy. Apart from the work required to put an entire production together, there\u2019s sometimes conflict in other areas. \u201cThere\u2019s been a little bit of a political battle with Auroville. I\u2019ve always believed that theatre comments on its context, on the space it\u2019s in. So we have always tried to do that, but as a result, we can on occasion start to look like we\u2019re criticizing systems and individuals. In a way it was great, our production was like the enfant terrible<\/em> or the troublemakers you know, and that\u2019s great. Theatre should be trouble, you shouldn\u2019t be toe-ing a line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Apart from this, Jesse finds that Auroville is the perfect place for theatre. \u201cI think you will find less challenges in Auroville to produce theatre than anywhere else. Anywhere else you come to find that spaces are incredibly expensive, nobody does anything for free, nobody has the time because they\u2019re also working to make money, so your capacity to experiment is gigantically difficult, even to put up a standard piece of theatre. For me, Auroville has always been this amazing, creative playground. For someone that\u2019s creative and wants to make things, especially something collaborative that involves large groups of people, this is the place. You have spaces that are essentially free, and you have a gigantic collection of highly talented people who are super motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can find the script and photo gallery of the last Miraculous Productions show, \u2018Message in a Bottle\u2019, on its very own website here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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