When Kahani first held auditions, I had preconceptions of what the process was going to be about. I expected us to sit at some round table reading books and spewing ideas and philosophies on "Social Justice!" while one person madly scribbled. Out of those notes a script would be born and polished to perfection over the rehearsal period. Well, you know what they say about assumptions. The audition process should have been my first indicator that my presumptions were not the reality. We were given a series of requirements involving things like sound, sustained laughter, text, relationship roles of hero and villan, three props, and a few other odds and ends. Then we were given 20 minutes to create a skit that made sense. I was completely out of my element. Now I've come to realize that that's the point of trying something new: breaking down your comfort zones to let new things grow.
So the nonet of Kahani was born! The 9 of us found ourselves getting incredibly intimate with each other and the spaces within the first few weeks. I can still identify Alden by smell (daffodils), Fiona by her footfalls, and Jane by the way her arms swing. I know I can always count on Sammy and I to read and mirror each other, that Sam is someone I focus on when I feel like I'm not giving 100% because he always gives that and then some, that Joe is excellent at balancing spaces and will fill the hole if I can't, that Cameron can believably play any gender or personality when I'm too timid, that our Stage Manager Kat is also a perfect study in movement, overachievement, and balance, and Anya and I make gorgeous impossible shapes and lines together. In exercises, such as telling our life story in the way our feet touched the floor, I learned how much I had in common, or didn't have in common with people. As someone who considers her self immensely self-acquainted, I discovered a heightened sense of awareness of both my peers and myself.
At first I was afraid. I was new to the theater program at K, and I was just beginning to get comfortable with my friends on campus, not to even mention a brand new cast of people. Plus I had never been good at improv. I thought of myself as a pretend playwright and actress. But over time I began to find a groove and found myself rejuvenating at the end of rehearsal on a level I hadn't discovered in my past theater experiences. When we were given our first assignment, a series of personal writings involving our families, specifically our relationship with our mothers, I felt like running and hiding. Just because I was an expressive person who was passionate about balance in social settings did not mean I was prepared to share my personal experiences with the cast. In hindsight it made sense to partner self-exploration with a series of readings from Mai and selected short stories. What better battle for balance do we know than in our personal lives? But at the time, it felt like an incredible invasion of privacy. Here I was expecting us to read a book, write a script, and polish the blocking. How dare someone do something different?
Soon the "rolling on the floor" and skit-making exercises began to get transfered to the text, Mai. Every day we saw something consistently new on the stage. Different opinions, different angles, different props, different settings, different expressions even if it was the exact same scene. Sometimes it was skits. Sometimes it was the impact of a set. I still fondly look back to one of our exercises. I was partnered with Alden on the assignment where we had to find a series of props that reminded us of the "world of Kahani". We had to tell a story of beginning, middle, and end, with sound effects and movement not created by actors themselves. So, of course, our response was to tie a teddy to a tricycle that refused to go strait and proceeded to go after the audience instead of follow his set up life-path of school (books and a bell), dating (dinner set), marriage (Wedding Cake with Wookie and C3PO figurines), parenting (a stroller), and death (tombstone, cane, and clock). We put the audience in dark, using a flashlight and creepy music to set the scene. I think it was this assignment that cued me into the fact this was not the theater I had grown up with in my education or my parents careers in theater. And I LIKED it. I began to throw myself into looking at expression than more than just picking the right text. It was movement and setting and interaction. So much more could be said with so much less. Impact. Impact was the second largest lesson I learned. Whether it was reusing an image from way back in callbacks where a circle of people pushed a character while hurling lines from the text until they ended on the floor, or using pieces of cloth to represent parda, or foot-dances to emphasize relationships, I was enthralled and out of my element in a way that made me ecstatic, until my analytical mind got in the way.
As someone who likes to memorize a month in advance, not having a script set was a huge disadvantage to my comfort levels. Part of the issue of creating a script is creating a script, not to mention setting the cast and set itself. My passion would morph into mood swings of sullenness and pessimism and self-doubt. There were moments I could let go and remember why I did Kahani in the first place, like when we warmed up doing sun salutations in the pouring rain outside (yes I realize the irony). At those moments I could remember how my goal was to express with a group of people who wanted to wash away worries and ignorance for just a bit and enjoy ourselves in something we were mutually passionate about. Instead of embracing the process I got wrapped up in deadlines and comfort zones. My patience was being tested and failing miserably. I wanted something solid and something solid NOW. Instead I was dancing around trying to exude different characters and getting wrapped up in pardas and worries.
Then came show week. I was a nervous wreck. I got off book in two days, and didn't feel secure in the new script at all. Yes, I knew the show intimately, because each scene had somehow touched each of our hands, but the details and intricacies were a distraction I couldn't afford. In that last tech week we cranked out and did our best to stay positive. Even the techies on spotlight could tell we were scrambling. One day during warmups I was trying to get into character. One of the spotlight operators narrowed his lens to the smallest point it could do. I proceeded to chase it around the stage like a kitten. Then there was another one. In that moment I just let go and enjoyed myself until Reeves laughed and said "You know, the spots are supposed to follow the actors, not the other way around", and I remembered reality. I wasn't just a girl in pigtails and a skirt with a series of lines flailing about pretending to know how to move. I was Sunaina and her journey, not her individual sound bits or a series of choreography and blocking. It was rehearsal run time. And then it was show time.
After performing and hearing the response from the audience, the largest lesson I learned was how much you can touch or connect to people through art. I've always been a creative kid, and afraid to embrace it. There's this fear of "success" that follows creative endeavors around like a cartoon cloud. Through Kahani, I realized that cloud is going to be there, but I don't have a choice. I have to create. I have to express. And I have to communicate. There's no other question about it. That's the personal aspect to it. Also hearing people's personal and general responses, how can I NOT work as hard as I can to connect to people? Art opens us up in ways we can't understand, as both a creator and a receiver. In the process we end up being both.
One expectation was correct: Kahani is a lifechanging story. The surprise was it helped change me personally just as much as it helped me to grow academically and reach out to others.
McKenna M. Kring
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