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Twits: Story Telling, Drawing and Theatre Project

The Twits is a humorous children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was written in 1979, and first published in 1980.

Mr. and Mrs. Twit are two ugly, smelly, nasty, stupid people who spend their lives playing nasty tricks on each other. They also enjoy being cruel to animals, which they do by luring birds to glue-smothered trees so they can be baked into bird pie, and tormenting their pet monkeys,Muggle-Wump and his family, by getting them to stand upside down, one on top of the other. They hate children, and Mrs. Twit often carries a walking stick in her right hand that she uses to hit children and animals.

One day, the arrival of the Roly-Poly Bird from Africa allows the monkeys and the surviving birds to get the revenge they have craved for years. They glue the carpet and furniture to the living room ceiling while the Twits are out. On the Twits' return, two ravens swoop over and drop glue from paintbrushes held in their claws onto the Twits' heads. When the Twits go indoors and see their furniture upside down, they stand on their heads, believing they are upside down, and because of the glue on their heads, they remain stuck that way. With the Twits out of the way, the Muggle-Wumps are able to return to their native Africa with the help of the Roly-Poly Bird. Eventually, the Twits' bodies collapse into themselves, until there is nothing left of them but their clothes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twits

Twits was a reading and drawing project conducted by me inside the classroom. Children drew wonderful and vivid images of trees on which Twits applied glue to hunt birds, they used to later eat up.

The class was a collaboration of story reading, drawing, followed by a theatre production.
The images were drawn by kids on a rough paper, followed by mounting the same images on the ceramic tiles.

The age group : 4 rth Standard. 

Trees

Mr. Twits

Mrs. Twits

Mrs. Twits

 Roly-Poly Bird

The bird pie, made by Twits

The bird pie, made by Twits

Twits home

 Twits catching the birds

 Twits making the the apple pie

Twits get stuck upside down as planned by the Roly-Poly Bird

The above mentioned project took 2 months to be culminated. The images were combined to make a mural once they were made. The project was process based and the images were drawn and edited as and when the story progressed. A group of students also acted out the play in the morning assembly at school.

Ek chhota Goldflake

About Ek Chhota Goldflake

Ek Chhota goldflake is a play which takes place amongst friends. Amongst friends who meet over chai and hardly know that they sound theatrical in nature. Or that it’s almost like living theatre.

For me, the group ‘chai times’ have been intriguing. Even as I sat talking with my friends I felt that it has a great potential to work as a theatre piece, and it actually does! Subconsciously, unknowingly.

Much without my friends notice, ever since the idea of writing about it struck my mind, I have kept it to myself because I wanted my friends to be least concerned about the fact that they were being observed.

The idea of us meeting over tea and talk about our day to day musings fascinates me. Though the links to the conversations are loose, and unplanned, that’s what works best for these times. People are free to talk about what they want to.

To me this is theatre too. It is generally believed that it takes place on the other side of the stage, while for me; most of it has been through observing, spending time with people, knowing them.

As the play unfolds, one could see how friends discover themselves and others around them in college over tiny chit chats, over happy sad and common stories.

At a certain level it’s also about bonding and relationships. About seeking and giving space. About new and distorted friendships and differences. Also being there inspite of it.

Moreover, thankfully it is more real than the films which depict a happy college going geek’s life, which to me is much more complicated and simple in our day to day life.

I also realize that most of this is my way of seeing and perception of our chai times and that whatever has been captured in this play is just a fraction of what my friends are or what we end up bringing onto the table.

Also this text is constructed with a rhetorical perspective, to depict how I think we sound.

And thereby the Chhota Goldflake becomes a metaphor for these fleeting moments. And more so the smoke.

Writing Theatre Scripts at CEPT

Charandas today, An Adaptation of Charandas Chor, a play poster

Poster Design: Kunal Panchal

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