Gnatak theatre group to stage Athol Fugard’s play, ‘The Train Driver’, in Thiruvananthapuram

The Train Driver by South African playwright to be staged in Thiruvananthapuram by Bengaluru based theatre group Gnatak

In 1979, a group of young people in Bengaluru — undergraduate students, doctors, engineers, and scientists — came together to form Gnatak, a theatre collective staging English plays that highlighted the lives of those on the margins. The group remained active for nearly eight years before going dormant, only to be revived in the early 2000s with a series of productions inspired by the works of leading international playwrights.

On May 10, Gnatak will stage The Train Driver in Thiruvananthapuram. The 70-minute play, written by recently deceased South African playwright Athol Fugard, is directed by Anikh Ghosh — an independent filmmaker and writer who also directed Gnatak’s inaugural production, The Island (also by Fugard), in 1979.

MetroPlus caught up with the Gnatak team currently in the city: actors Abraham Karimpanal and Rohit Dave, and members of the technical crew, Michael Joseph (lighting) and Sutosom Chakraborthy (sound).

Abraham and Michael, both 65, have been with Gnatak since its inception. Abraham, also a director and lighting designer, has worked with stalwarts such as Kavalam Narayana Panikkar, Gracias Devaraj, and Prakash Aswani. Michael, a filmmaker and educator known for his pioneering work with various institutions, is director at the Datsi School for Storytellers in Thiruvananthapuram, a collaboration between Zebu Animation Studios and Additional Skill Acquisition Programme (ASAP) Kerala.

Rohit, 53, was formerly with Rafiki Theatre and has also worked extensively as a voice artist. Sutosom, in his late 20s, is a CG lighting artist and mentor at Datsi; this production marks his first collaboration with Gnatak.

The Train Driver is based on a harrowing real-life event — a mother who died by suicide on a railway track with her three young children. In the play, Roelf Visagie, an Afrikaner train driver, is haunted after his train runs over a Black woman and her baby, still strapped to her back. Wracked with guilt, he turns up at a graveyard and meets Simon, the Black gravedigger tasked with burying the nameless dead. As their conversation unfolds, Roelf slowly begins to make sense of his inner turmoil and the world around him.

Abraham and Rohit have been portraying Simon and Roelf respectively since the play’s first staging in 2014. “One of the reasons we chose this piece is its logistical ease — it has only two actors and can be performed in any space,” says Rohit. “But more than that, although it was written in post-apartheid South Africa, the theme still resonates. It’s about two people — from very different backgrounds — trying to understand one another.” Abraham adds, “It’s an emotional work and a challenge for any actor. It suits our style.”