‘I was lucky to meet Naseer sir early in life’
Trishla Patel’s new play, Jannat Central, stands out even among the plethora of unique stories and ideas that make their way to the stage. A thriller that explores mental illness through the medium of dance, the play talks about psychological disorders and how people are often unaware of their own minds and biases. Trishla, who wrote and codirected the play with Shashank Dutt, says, “The idea of the play just came to me one day — it’s about psychological disorders, and how sometimes people go through these disorders and they are not even aware of it. It is a glance into the mind of someone with a split personality.”
She explains the concept by pointing out how social media’s influence on people may sometimes cause people to unknowingly adopt different behaviours when online. “You are one person on social media and you become someone else outside it. And you always strive to try and impress somebody. The play is about a girl trying to discover herself through dance; she does not even know that she is trying to do that,” Trishla says.
She believes the play has resonated with audiences owing to the wide range of emotions it explores. “It is quite dark, and to add to that, it’s also a comedy. So it’s got all kinds of flavours within it, and there is also a lot of dance involved. We have Sandip Soparrkar, who is acting and dancing in it. There is a reason for the dance — it’s not put in just for the sake of it. It is a thriller with dance as a medium, which makes it quite entertaining.”
Trishla feels lucky to have been trained by thespians such as Naseeruddin Shah, Feroz Khan and Satyadev Dubey. “After college, I was introduced to Feroz Khan, who was doing Mahatma vs Gandhi, and I landed a role in it. So one of my first teachers was Naseeruddin Shah, who was playing Gandhi in the play. I was lucky to have met him so early in my life; I learnt so much from him. Then I met Satyadev Dubey Ji, who taught me everything about theatre. These experiences became my NSD (National School of
Drama),” she says.