Kaivalya Plays – Improvisation in India

My parents had retired and I was coming back from Panama, where I had been for several years. I had begun to feel limited in my artistic work in Panama and came to India seeking a larger pond. 

Over time, I was also able to connect to my identity as an Indian, something I had struggled with my whole life. I knew no one in India and had no friends. By 2012, I was a working actor and journalist with India’s largest weekly newsmagazine, India Today. 

I met like-minded people who wanted to work in a manner different than either the messily organized and unsafe theatre district of Delhi (Mandi House) or the elitist South Delhi crowd.

 In 2012, Kaivalya Plays was formed out of a collective of theatre creators who worked backstage at the Short+Sweet Festival (a 10 minute theatre competition). We all believed in opening our doors to anyone (especially the inexperienced), casting gender blind, and creating new innovative work away from the familiar scripts that were being performed ad nauseam. 

My improv training from the Theatre Guild of Ancón immediately allowed us to offer tools for absolute beginners. We also emphasized the discipline of working backstage before jumping onstage as actors, to build appreciation for working in the theater. 

By 2014, we had founded one of the first improv teams of the capital CueLess Improv which became an important cultural milestone for young actors looking to test and perform their skills. 

Over time, we branched out into work in Spanish, teaching cultural management and focusing on technological innovation. Due to the high practical use and applications of improv as a training curriculum and as a form for devising, we are still perceived primarily as an improv company. 

Shawn:  How is Improvisation received by the public there?
Since 2019, Improv has now become visible and popular as a performance form for audiences. While the visibility of improv still lags far behind the explosive growth of the stand-up comedy scene in India, it is much more effective than most other forms of theatre in building communities and long-term relationships with performers. 

Shawn:  “Kaivalya”?  Why did you choose “Kaivalya Plays” and what does it mean for you?

India has seen struggle and strife all through the freedom struggle and the genocide perpetrated by Churchill during the Bengal famine. But to live through a period in history where we witnessed our healthcare system collapse due to poor planning, incompetence, and disregard for human life has left sheer disbelief in its wake. 

No one is unaffected. 

We lost a team member during this wave, another lost his mother and most of us have been chasing hospital beds, oxygen cylinders or medicines for family members. 

More than anger, fear or even hopelessness the most commonly reported feeling is numbness. At one point, everything seemed so out of our hands, the barrage of suffering so continuous that most of us no longer knew how to react. Again, the saviour at times like this for many of us has been improv. 

Getting into a room full of friends or strangers and getting to play out situations that can inspire laughter is the biggest relief, but also an anchor to sanity. 

While the situation has improved, a wariness and distrust remains. Like any other country, India is more divided than ever and we face multiple issues regarding our environment, healthcare, education, energy, infrastructure, unemployment, slowed economic growth, corruption, press freedom, forced migration, religious and caste related violence more than any other time in our history. 

And yet, we still hold onto the belief that we can make a difference and can fight through this too.