Avalanche is a powerful three-act play set in a mountain village that lives nine months each year under the constant threat of an avalanche. To prevent disaster, the community enforces near-total silence, regulating every aspect of life—including prohibiting childbirth during the danger period, with severe punishments for disobedience. Over time, fear and rigid rule-following become ingrained as virtues. The drama unfolds over a few intense hours within a single household spanning three generations: an Old Man who mourns a life lost to silence, and a Young Man and Young Woman who struggle against suffocating conformity, becoming disruptive forces within the oppressive system. In staging the production, emphasis was placed on preserving the text’s parable-like universality while evoking the harsh reality of extreme cold. Through multi-level set design, whispered yet audible dialogue, and immersive theatrical techniques, the performance creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension. The play concludes by breaking theatrical convention, as actors directly acknowledge the audience, reinforcing its timeless critique of repression and social control.

Writer:

Tuncer Cücenoğlu (1944–2019) was a prominent Turkish playwright and author, known for his powerful political and social dramas. His works often tackled themes such as authoritarianism, censorship, and individual freedom, earning him a respected place in both Turkish and international theatre. Cücenoğlu’s works have been translated into more than 30 languages and performed in over 40 countries, reflecting the universal relevance of his themes.

Director:

Gandharv Dewan is an alumnus of the National School of Drama (NSD). He has directed notable productions such as The Class Enemy by Nigel Williams, The Tame Duck (adapted from Ibsen’s ‘The Wild Duck’), Footnotes (from Craig Taylor’s ‘One Million Tiny Plays About Britain’), and an adaptation of David Greig’s The Yellow Moon. As an actor, he has appeared in many plays and has featured in films and OTT projects such as Gulmohar, The Railway Men, The Zoya Factor, and Thoda Adjust Please. He serves as visiting faculty at Whistling Woods International, teaching World Drama and Modern Indian Drama, and attended the SSAF Kasauli Summer School to deepen his interdisciplinary practice.

Director’s Note

Over the past few years, the search for a play that could meaningfully reflect the present moment led to Tuncer Cücenoğlu’s Avalanche, a work that resonated both thematically and stylistically. In today’s socio-political climate, where fear and self-censorship often silence voices, Avalanche feels urgently relevant. Its metaphor of a village forced into silence to prevent disaster mirrors contemporary anxieties about speech, power, and repression. The play’s unnamed characters and universal setting deepen its resonance, portraying how fear becomes internalised within families and communities. Artistically, the production explores silence as performative language, created through immersive spatial and sonic design in collaboration with architect Madhav Raman and sound designer Hitesh Chaurasia. With twelve actors performing almost entirely in whispers, the staging transforms restraint into intensity. The challenge of sustaining tension through quietness becomes a political gesture — allowing silence not to suppress meaning, but to amplify it.

Group:

“We at ‘The Gathered’ are old travellers of theatre looking to build a new boat. A boat that we will ride in our continuing endeavour to understand the world we live in through the performing arts. We have journeyed with socially relevant theatre via institutions such as NSD, FTII and Delhi University for over 11 years. The constituents of the group have actively stepped into the role of theatre facilitation, curate film screenings, and theatre-script readings on a regular basis.