SAMAADHI – Riverside Studios
SAMAADHI, performed by Mohit Mathur and Ivanity Novak at the Riverside Studios as part of the Bitesize Festival, depicts India’s most significant and lamentable colonial event, the Jallianwala Baug Massacre. The audience is welcomed into the auditorium by an ongoing audio news report on the heart-wrenching episode blended with Indian instrumental music. While the news report seems befitting, direct, and aptly contextual, the melodious music does little to set the stage for a rather dark, traumatic, and painful performance to follow. The ‘show in development’ opens to a desolate stage with Mathur dragging a suitcase packed with burnt papers, a winter coat, a piece of cloth, a bullet, and a long stick summing up the minimalistic prop list for the show.
The duo uses physical theatre and sp...