Tabling out existentialism with Mezok by Jyoti Dogra

The Hindu

08-05-2025

Bengaluru-based Linear Festivals and the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts (PCPA) is celebrating their collaboration with Mezok, a play. Not only will this show be Mezok's premiere in the city, but it is also the inaugural show of the LinearX PCPA performances.
Mezok is a multi-narrative performance that unveils the complexities of human nature. According to Jyoti Dogra, playwright and director, 'Mezok is a made up name, of a made up mountain, a mountain that sees you before you see it.'
Mumbai-based Jyoti Dogra who has 20 years of solo and original work to her credit, says Mezok is the first time she is writing, directing and producing an ensemble piece. Talking about the ideation and conceptualisation of this work, she says, 'It began with explorations around a table, and from there we began building a world suspended between the real and the abstract.'
'Over the years I've been working with various pieces of furniture and somehow, I was fascinated by the table. It is three dimensional, but when you look at it vertically, it transforms into something completely different as opposed to when one accesses it from underneath. The kind of spaces a table opens up, just in terms of our presence inside it fascinated me, and I decided to work on this idea.'
Jyoti and a few like-minded others developed the idea further at Nirdigantha, the art education centre at Shettihalli,over a period of two months.
'We started with a table and no plans, but within the first 20 days, ideas began to emerge — of a mountain, offices, dining tables and bureaucracy. Soon, the table stopped being a table — it became a bar, a home, a plough, a field, and more. Our material began to develop and I started to structure it; that is how the piece came about.'
'An upside down table is a space that is different from the one that is created when you stand up on it. You are in a different place altogether, and not just physically,' she adds.
Though this weekend will see Mezok debut in Bengaluru, it has already completed 20 shows after opening In Bombay and has been staged in Bareilly, Hyderabad and Delhi.
As many as six regional languages can be heard in Mezok — Kannada, Hindi, Punjabi, Sirmauri (a Pahari dialect from Himachal), Garhwali from Uttarakhand, and Ladakhi, apart from English — courtesy actors from Ladakh, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai.
'From the beginning, I urged actors to improvise in their mother tongue, even though the rest of us would not understand. Language played an important role in the way their bodies responded to the table and the spaces within it,' says Jyoti.
Jyoti elaborates on how a mother tongue causes a shift in the way a person is present in their bodies and how those changes play out when they relate to other people. 'While most of these actors now live and work in urban communities, the process was a journey back to their roots and childhood and where their families are from.'
'Though the table starts off as an object you can identify with, it has a contextual use and changing its position opens up spaces which changes how you feel within your own body,' she says, adding that, 'the table is not a prop, but is one of the actors, playing many roles in Mezok.'
Linear Festivals was founded by Vishruti Bindal and Bharavi in September 2024, with the intent of 'pushing boundaries and expanding possibilities in the performing arts'. Mezok is their first show in Bengaluru and one of the more pragmatic aspects of the festivals is that their events are held at venues along metro stations to make them accessible for all.
Mezok by Linear Festivals will be performed at the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts on May 10, at 7pm. Tickets starting at ₹299 are available on BookMyShow.