Stills from the play Photo credit: Special Arrangements

Cancer wreaks havoc on one’s physical, emotional and financial well-being. The disease not only afflicts the patient but also the family and caregivers, leaving devastating side effects due to prolonged treatment lasting years.

In Bengaluru, the Karunashraya (Bangalore Hospice Trust) provides free palliative care to the terminally ill, trying to make their lives as comfortable as possible. In 2023, Karunashraya begins. pass over, A book compiling the stories of his patients. These stories are brought to life on stage by First Drop Theater from April 13 through Crossing Over.

Bejoy Balagopal Photo credit: Special Arrangements

“First Drop Theater has not come into mainstream theater but it is called Playback Theatre,” says Bejoy, who co-founded the group with Radhika Jain, founder and artistic director of First Drop Theatre. “It is an interactive, social-improvisational form of theater where the audience shares their feelings and moments from their lives, and the actors use text, poetry, images, movement, music, metaphors, and more to express them. But they offer it.”

Writer and director Bijoy Balagopal says the best thing about playback theater is that one doesn’t need a stage, costumes or a big stage set. “It can be practiced in any open space. We have also used metaphors in short and long forms to bring to life the stories that the audience shares with us using this form of theatre.

First Drop Theatre, explains Bejoy, focuses on theater and healthcare, which led him to work extensively with Karunasrayya. “We did a playback performance based on our conversations with the nurses and caregivers there. The nurses, we felt, were deeply affected by all the patients they had lost because of end-of-life coronavirus. Some of them said it was so emotionally draining that they numbed themselves to better deal with the pain on a daily basis.

Radhika conducted an eight-week extended workshop for nurses at Karunashreya to educate them about their emotions and how to deal with them. Years of interaction led Karunashrayya to collaborate with First Drop Theater when they launched the book.

Bejoy says it is a narrative of the experiences of the critically ill, nurses, doctors and caregivers. “We were asked to stage these stories. pass over is a proscenium play.”

Radhika Jain | Photo credit: Special Arrangements

The play includes three stories from the book, The bonds that bind. (Depicting Relationships) A rainbow of emotions (different levels of acceptance by patients) and Prem and Prem (About the world beyond the binary and how that has new meanings for health care professionals). Bejoy says the latter is the story shadow and light, About a friend who loses his partner to cancer and his struggle to cope.

One thing that hospice caregivers forget, Bejoy says, is that they just have to be there for the patient. “This came out when we heard our friend’s personal account. The staff at Karunashreya said that it would be prudent to sit down and have a conversation. We have to put him at ease and have a deep conversation with him. Do everything possible to avoid. Shadow and light Talks about this aspect of cancer.

After the staging, Bejoy says, there will be half an hour of playback theater time to interact with the audience.

The play was previously presented to the staff and guests of Karunashari on the occasion of World Palliative Care Day in October 2022 and was staged for the public in February and March this year.

Overall project concept and artistic design for pass over is by Radhika, sets by Naman Roy and music by Deepti Bhaskar. It will feature Tulsi Raj, Sinehal Basuya, Vinay Kumar and Bijoy Balagopal in the cast.

Crossing over will be held on April 13 at Vyuma Art Space, JP Nagar, April 14 at Medai – The Stage, Koramangala and April 20 at Shunia Center for Art and Somatic Practice, Lalbagh Main Road. All shows are at 5.30 pm and tickets are on BookMyShow.