Flying Fish is a German drama group journeying through Nepal and India for eight months. Harry Fuhrmann, their Director, explains that they had “to go far away to get new ingredients which people don’t use in Germany and bring it back to its roots to avoid always cooking the same soup”. They gave up their homes to travel because “there was not much funding”. After six months in a bus burning the miles from Nepal and kicking up the social dust throughout the country, they hit Goa and gave us an opportunity to experience what their cultural interaction odyssey had generated. The use of minimal props, costumes, musical effects and lighting brought to life a graphic play at the Kala Academy.

Scene 1 “Sapna” (dreams) brings the audience up close to the play in two phases. The evening opens with the entire cast and crew interacting closely with the audience by sharing their real dreams and getting audience responses to their comments. They expect audience participation and get it with a vengeance. Then they settle down to sleep communally. Visual theatre with touches of humour sets the mood.

Morning ushers waking up with precise character differentiation established. The clearing throats and brushing teeth rituals give rise to hilarious satire on the vividly captured mannerisms. The fantasy language “gramulo” effectively communicates the energetic highly expressive exchanges through nonsense words. The agitated body language and intonation convey the emotions perfectly.

Next, a series of portraits opens out onto impressions of India:

Usha, the overworked servant , cooking, serving breakfast, rushing around coping with all the odd jobs on stage and throwing her frustrations into beating the garments she washes on the periphery of the audience. She finds an escape in her short-lived dreams as an air hostess with all her neighbourhood co-workers on board.

The rickshaw puller rushes round all day but nurtures a dream of being a cricket player. All the energy bursts into his vigorous bowling and batting.

The shopkeeper injects all his energies into his wearying repetitive chant “Come to my shop” and rants off a list to entice customers to visit his shop and buy his wares. His dozing moments stray into a life on easy street in an American Dream.

The street musician plays enthusiastically to earn enough money for his family but sometimes his music transports him to a Carnegie Hall concert attended by his local audience. His heart is set on it but the music plays on in the street while the meagre money trickles in.

The stone carrier laboriously ekes out an existence with his back breaking employment. His dream of owning a big lorry (Tata) to drive all the stones and family lights up his face and his life at least momentarily

The energy of the actors throwing themselves with gusto into these happy-sad portraits of Indian life, captured with exact detail, create exuberant theatre. The tribute to determined survival and acceptance of life’s burdens is genuine. The juxtaposed dreams of better lives extending to glamourous existence heighten the tragedy. These are momentary flirtations away from the hard grind of crushing daily routine.

Scene 2 Sons and Daughters brings together the pompous mother, the doting imprisoned son and the neglected, dominated daughter-in-law to dramatise a sharp-edged sequence of the emotional destruction of the wife with the insensitive demand for the killing of female babies. The wife eventually asserts herself with a powerful twist at the end – the chilling destruction of her male child with a knitting needle. This drama group certainly does not pull punches. The biting satire creates a sense of rightness! We are challenged to choose our poison.

Scene 3 Old Age, Death and Burial generates a sharp observation of customs, rituals and philosophy brought screamingly to life on stage mainly through mime, the silence piercing with a loud shout into our inner being.

The man who dies struggles into the audience and gets their help to climb up and then down before he collapses in their laps. The people on stage and members of the audience help him to his death and carry him to his funeral pyre. The sincere precision of vision and boldness of portrayal hits the audience hard.

The director worked with the fantasy of the actors, asking clarifying questions to achieve one interpretation through discussion. “It was a big risk and hard work to have so many opinions till the baby comes out” says Furhmann. For him “every performance is different because the play is constantly evolving. Crazy! Theatre needs passion. The actor in the centre can come close to the audience and break the fourth wall”, he continues enthusiastically.

The spontaneous feedback and animated discussions of members of the audience with the cast spoke eloquently of the immediate impact of the venture. The fish hiding in the deep waters of the Indian psyche were flying high. Back in Germany, the Indian ingredients will be blended into a fresh, strong, hot broth to tantalise European palates. This powerful picture of India left many eyes wet and mouths dry.