Time to Play

The Skeleton Woman is inspired by an Inuit folk tale about a fisherman who one day nets a skeleton. The skeleton woman follows him home and a deep bond develops between them. “The tale haunted me. It’s about life,love,loneliness and death and about metaphorical deaths within relationships,” says Koechlin. It affected her enough to become a playwright. “When I started writing,I didn’t know which way to go. I had never written a script,so I was naturally very worried,” says Koechlin,who studied drama at Goldsmith’s

University in London and acted at London’s Theatre of Relativity for two years before returning to India and becoming part of the Mumbai theatre circuit.

Midway through scripting,Koechlin turned to her Mumbai co-actor Prashant Prakash for help and together they had the script ready by January. “Along the way,the protagonist becomes a young writer who is also a fisherman. He has a powerful imagination and often finds himself tangled in his own creations. With sharks in his living room,a goose that speaks,and a skeleton that’s driving him mad,he struggles to have a grasp on what’s real and what’s in his head. With him through all of this is his wife,who is constantly trying to bring him back to earth,” says Prakash,24,who was with Mumbai’s Company Theatre until he decided to start Quaff Theatre with Koechlin.

Directed by Nayantara Kotian,the play moves from being dark and full of suspense to one packed with humour. “Now,it is a playful drama with a strong underlying meaning,” says Koechlin. The Skeleton Woman,which opened in Mumbai,has already raked in its share of acclaim and The Hindu Metroplus Award.

The play will be staged at the India Habitat Centre on April 11 and 12. Time: 8 pm. Contact: 24682001