Meghana AT has lost her voice and has difficulty speaking. It may not be an infection. His doctor said it was due to pollution – ironic as he researched an environmental problem in Pune to include in his play, Plan B/C/D/E. The play will be presented at Shreeram Lagoo Rang-Avkash in Pune on December 12 as part of the IAPAR theater festival.
Plan B/C/D/E is a collaborative effort that emerged after Meghana grew tired of waiting for policymakers to effectively tackle climate change. He makes plans to deal with the crisis. The play, in which the audience plays an important role, is an attempt to make those programs watertight. One of the problems he refers to is the release of statistics about alert days and extreme alert days during the extreme heat in Mumbai. Meghana asks the audience, “So, how many days are left?” “Zine,” they answer him, and he sings a popular Hindi song, “Jeena ke hai…” and they reply, “chaar din”.
“Comedy is an important tool in the game. Disrespectful to the tone of the show. I feel that, if I just give the facts, it would not be a game but a series of lectures. “I think the reason we all have a hard time reading the news is that everything is weird all the time,” she said. Over the years, audiences have been told that they didn’t expect to get so many laughs from a show about the climate crisis.
Plan B/C/D/E deals with our planet’s emergency situation by following the main character, who is a fictional version of Meghana. He confides in the audience that he is someone who always has a problem with the weather. He talks about the prediction that a large part of Mumbai will be under water during the 2050 cyclone season. “This prediction scares me as I am a Mumbai girl. I can’t imagine living anywhere else especially because I’m a theater artist and I can’t rent. I live in my family’s house in Mumbai, which is the only way I can do this job. So, I have to save the city and I have to save this job. But, I don’t see a single step that should be taken to prevent global warming from affecting the city,” he said.
Before every show, Meghana does research on the history of the city she is doing, its history of development, and the future of the predicted weather. He was studying Pune when he got news of the September incident where a Pune Municipal Corporation truck and a two-wheeler fell into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up in the parking lot of Post City in Budhwar Peth. It seemed that there was an old well in this hole that was built and covered with sticks. “I use a lot of my history in this game. As I live in Mumbai, I have a lot of personal issues. Fortunately, I have memories of Pune and I am developing this relationship for the audience,” says Meghana. He does a lot of research and many people email him months later for links to tests and studies.
The show started in 2019 in the art room and is performed in the living rooms, the black box, the proscenium, and a number of non-standard areas. “The purpose of the stadium is to make it look like it’s not a game because this is not a game. It is true,” he said.
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