Incapacitated, while we wait for an exit from this disease of isolation, we wonder whether the king’s letter ever reaches Amol! The presentation by Whole 9 Yards and Alliance Française du Bengale of Rabindranath Tagore’s play, The Post Office, touches upon the unspeakable fear of losing human touch. The vexed question of how to receive a digitally-streamed performance is nonetheless unsettling. It blurs the principles of theatre as well as that of cinema.

As audience, I had to reorient myself to overlook the discontinuity of space, time or that of the eyeline in favour of a shared experience of being caged. But the brilliance of the acting prompted me to revisit the possibility of hope in waiting for death, a theme that pulsates in Tagore’s original play. The use of Tagore’s songs in this adaptation is distinctive.The truth of the performances as well as the experience of watching it heightened the feeling of being curtailed as actors performed from within the confines of their homes while the characters transcended barriers to participate in Tagore’s world of compassion.