Denis Maillefer invited by National School of Drama

National School of Drama Final Year Students present DRIVE under the direction of Swiss theatre director Denis Maillefer. [dated March 2011]

National School of Drama Final Year Students present 
DRIVE

Concept & Direction by Swiss theatre director Denis Maillefer

At Abhimanch, National School of Drama
From 28th February to 6th March 2011 at 6:30 pm
Also on 4th, 5th & 6th March at 3:30pm

Swiss theatre director Denis Maillefer invited by National School of Drama After the very successful presentation of the theatre production For the First Time – ‘La Premiere Fois’ by Théâtre en Flammes,as part of the 11th Bharat Rang Mahotsav in 2009, the Director Denis Maillefer was invited to conduct a workshop with the final year students of the National School of Drama, New Delhi in 2009 and once again for a second time in 2011. The production that Denis Maillefer is working on with the NSD final year students is called DRIVE.

Brief on the production 
Must theatre deal with real life? Must theatre tell us about the reality close to us, just outside the stage, just outside the school (for us in NSD)? Of course, could be the answer, but not in an absolute realistic way. We are not journalists, we don’t exactly work on a documentary. So what did we do? What is Drive about? The students went to the streets of Delhi. They had to find a ‘partner’. For the female students, this partner had to be a traffic police woman.For the male students, he had to be an autorickshaw driver. Then the idea was to get in touch, ask questions, talk, know as much as possible about their professional lives and their private life. The second step, for the students was to build a stage character from the real person. Not just imitate or exactly play this person, but find, from the real one, a detail, a way of being and then play this newborn character. The third step was to collaborate with the design students, who were also in the same process from the beginning. All students had to build a specific little space for each character, on stage. What does the 'box' tell the audience about the character? How does it help to play?