“Really what keeps us apart at the end of years is unshared childhood.” – A K Ramanujan

The provocation: Can a room of performers and audience members recreate the oft- romanticised Dead Letter Office – where undelivered and undeliverable post is sent– and reanimate it? To find out, we invited people across the globe to mail us real letters that were never read by their intended recipients, either because they remained unwritten or simply unsent.

The performance: An intimate, immersive experiment exploring the connection between empathy and love, located in the Dead Letter Offices of our minds. Audience members will step into the roles of the anonymous addressees and addressed, for what could become a catharsis once removed.

The assumption: To love is to bear witness. To bear witness is to love.

The challenge: Can we love people with whom we share no personal histories? Can the point of separation – unshared moments – become the point of contact?

Unshared Childhoods is a collective effort at imagination disguised as a play. Spurred on by teenage party games, Marquez’s short stories, romanticised tales of messages in glass bottles afloat at sea, and a fascination for compound adjectives, this piece explores the notion that all desire stems from a space of lack... as does all destruction.

In a volatile world where words are used as a smokescreen, Unshared Childhoods invites individuals to keep vigil in no man’s land.

Acknowledgements

The 'Unshared' team wishes to thank Marc Silberschatz and Mark Stevenson, under whose mentorship this piece was conceived and first performed at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow in September 2019. We'd also like to thank Ankna Arockiam, Samrat Majumder, Neil Johnston, and Gabriel Baicu, for their faith in and generosity with a new work-in-progress as its first collaborators.

A special mention for the ‘Using Dramaturgy’ residency (2019 – 2020) – developed and hosted by Flinn Works, Drama School Mumbai, and Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore – and all its glorious midwives for their ongoing insights.

The commissioned patchwork quilt which is the centerpiece of the Unshared set has been handmade by Usha Poste, Dipika Mistry, Rekha Shinde, Anita Yadav, Kavita Chavan, and Priti Chavan, with help from Smita Pandey.