Thru’ bush, briar, park, pale

It was a day when public spaces in Bengaluru were reclaimed by the people. On Sunday morning, one passed through crowds grabbing their favourite grub from numerous food trucks, magicians displaying their skills to groups of applauding audience, musicians sang songs and craftsmen painted the streets as MG Road observed the Open Streets initiative. A stone’s throw away, just aside a huge rock formation and the bamboo grove of Cubbon Park, a crowd of over 500 people gathered at 10 in the morning to watch A Midsummers Dream.

Shakespeare’s comedy of the rude mechanicals practising the entertainment for Theseus and Hippolyta’s marriage, the warring fairies and the two pairs of estranged lovers, found a mixed audience. There were collegians, techies and family who stumbled upon Puck’s mischief in the course of a Sunday picnic. There were no mikes or props apart from the canopy offered by the bamboo trees, with a string of flowers attached it. The birdsong provided the background score.

Bardolators, a motley group of lawyers, engineers and other working professionals bought together by their love for Shakespeare, put up the performance. “The idea of conducting plays in public spaces came in late 2014,” says Danish Sheikh, one of the organisers. “None of us are trained actors, but decided to do something in public spaces. We felt that Shakespeare was a mass entertainer and it was necessary to take his work to the larger public.”

He adds, “We started with just one playwright and a group of amateur actors. One of our first performances was the staging of Much Ado about Nothing at Cubbon Park to a small group of people last January. In November 2015, we decided to take up six plays that dealt with love and its conflict with the concept of justice. We got a good response for that performance too.”

The troupe would practice at Cubbon Park early in the mornings and would meet post work at Danish’s house for more sessions.

In their rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Danish and his group decided to give a queer take to the famous comedy. While the story remains the same, the couples (Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena) are gay. Danish says, “The play tries to break prejudices about same sex relationships by treating heterosexuality as abnormal. Irrational love that disregards conventional gender roles and societal norms are celebrated.”

Pooja Kapoor, a technical writer loved the play. “The setting and the performances were excellent. I loved Swar Thounaojam as Titania, the fairy queen and Danish Sheikh as Oberon. Surrounded by a canopy of trees, surrounded by natural beauty, Cubbon Park worked well as the sets.”

Sarthak Shah, college student, who was reading the original on his phone said, “My only knowledge of Shakespeare were from some of the Hindi movies that have been adapted from his works. This experience has made me very interested in knowing more. Though I did feel the sound dipping at certain junctures, I loved the overlying theme of the production. In times like this, when sexual minorities face persecution from society, such performances are a breath of fresh air.”