Q1.
I. Staging a play requires creativity, organisation, and teamwork. Steps involved in staging a play: (1) Choose a play that suits your requirement of theme, duration, number of actors, and available resources. (2) Choose a director, a stage manager, a light and sound incharge, a props manager, a costume designer, and a makeup artist. (3) Hold auditions and decide the roles. (4) Read the script and plan stage movements, and positions for each scene. (5) Make a schedule for rehearsal. (6) Work on the set design (backdrop) and make or collect the required props. (7) Design or gather appropriate costumes. (8) Plan makeup and hairstyles to suit the play’s time period. (9) Check light and sound arrangements. (10) Hold a dress rehearsal including sound and light effects. (11) Promote the event through posters and pamphlets. (12) Organise the backstage with labelled props, costumes, and actors’ entrances or exits. (13) Present the play to the audience.
Now, present the enactment of the play ‘Wisdom Paves the Way’ with the help of the steps you have just read. Ensure you use the correct intonation and sentence stress.
Answer
Method. The thirteen steps are a checklist; what follows is how they apply to this play in particular. Its great advantage is that it needs very little — two scenes, eight speaking parts and a bare stage.
| Item | Plan for this play |
|---|---|
| Cast (8 speaking parts) | Ram Datt, Shiv Datt, Har Datt, Dev Datt, the Merchant, the King, two Sentries — plus any number of silent courtiers, who are useful for the applause at the end. |
| Set — Scene I | A bare stage. One painted branch or a cloth-covered stool at stage left is enough to suggest the banyan tree; a painted backdrop of city walls at the rear stands for Ujjain “in the distance”. |
| Set — Scene II | A chair on a raised block for the throne, two long cloth strips hung behind it as the “rich tapestries”, and a yellow dupatta stretched above it for the “golden canopy”. |
| Props | A cloth bundle for the merchant, a spear or staff for each sentry. Nothing else is needed. |
| Costumes | Four plain kurtas, dusty at the hem, for the young men; one bright kurta and a shawl for the merchant; a heavy shawl, turban and stole for the King. |
| Lights | Full bright white for Scene I (“the sun is high”); a warmer, narrower pool on the throne for Scene II. |
| Sound | A low recording of a market crowd fading in during Scene I — the script asks for “the distant noise of the bustling city”. Silence in the courtroom, which makes the King’s voice carry. |
| Rehearsal focus | The four explanations in Scene II. They are long, they are all the same shape, and they will bore the audience unless each actor finds a different rhythm and the King varies his reaction each time. |
Speaking the play well — the two things the exercise names:
- Intonation. Every one of the King’s questions is a Wh- question — “And how did you deduce this?”, “How did you arrive at this conclusion?” — so all of them fall at the end. The merchant’s “Is your camel lame in one leg, by any chance?” pattern is different: those are Yes/No questions and must rise.
- Sentence stress. Two lines are decided entirely by which word is stressed:
- “You speak of my camel as if it stood before you, yet you dare to claim not to have seen it!” — the stress falls on not, and it is the accusation.
- “These are men of wisdom, not thieves.” — stressing these corrects the merchant without naming him.
Tip for the actor playing the King: He must not sound convinced too early. If he is warm from the first explanation, the audience has nothing left to watch. Play the first answer as sceptical, the second as interested, the third as impressed, and only the fourth as delighted — the script gives you those stage directions in exactly that order: (Nodding thoughtfully), (Smiling), (Impressed), (Marvelling).