Lounge
‘Portal Waiting’: A unique play that can be experienced through headphones
Summary
Directed and performed by musician Abhi Tambe, ‘Portal Waiting’ is a rich sonic experience. It is one of the ten plays nominated at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards 2025
In 2023, Bengaluru-based singer-songwriter Abhi Tambe released an Extended Play, or EP, Portal Waiting. Created during the nationwide lockdown brought about by the covid-19 pandemic, the six-track album had an end-of-the-world sort of apocalyptic feel, probably stemming from the collective anxiety and panic felt globally at the time.
Portal Waiting wasn't just released as an EP but also as a play, written, directed and performed by Tambe himself. The solo immersive performance fuses theatre, sound and live music, and is experienced through headphones. It has been nominated in four categories, including Best Play and Best Director, at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards 2025. The nominated plays will be showcased in Delhi between 13 and 20 March.
Tambe, who had never directed a theatre performance before Portal Waiting, confesses that he was only attempting to present his EP in a different way. That’s when he hit upon the idea of turning it into a play. “It's not just a set of songs but a narrative about a protagonist, who’s going through a journey. It was only when I was getting ready to release the EP that I started wondering about ways of performing it. A set of friends encouraged me to think along non-stereotypical ways," he elaborates.
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A podcast or a radio show were some of the other ideas Tambe contemplated, before putting pen to paper and “messing around with some dialogues and sound design while listening to it on headphones." That is how the idea of the play took shape.
During the performance, the audience is introduced to three characters. The first is the Musician, who is stuck in his studio during the pandemic, and is fast plunging into an existential crisis. The disruptions around him bring to light the stark disparities in the world. At various intervals, he also sings all the six songs from the EP.
The second is the Starman, a trans-human cyborg who embodies our collective fascination with freedom, technology, knowledge, and our own selves. The third character is the Ancient, a lonely old forest-dweller making his final journey from his wooded abode to an abandoned city, where he hopes to tell his story before passing on. “I think the central question is what it means to be human?" shares Tambe, who plays all three roles using a microphone, an electric guitar, and a sound controller pad connected to a laptop.
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The play is also his homage to sound. The musician and audio technologist says he owes much of his knowledge about theatre after working with director Abhishek Majumdar on three of his plays. “Apart from the songs, there are a lot of other sound design elements including the spaces inhabited by these characters. For instance, there are the sounds of the wind and floating when we are with the Starman, and a feel of the forests with the Ancient. In the post-apocalyptic scenario, there are not many humans left and the trees have taken over," says Tambe, who has tried to create a rich sonic experience.
Portal Waiting owes much of its staging to Simon McBurney’s play The Encounter, which could be experienced through headphones during the pandemic. “I've secretly wanted to do a headphone show for a very long time, but it was only when I watched ‘The Encounter’ online during the pandemic that something clicked. I realised you could actually do an entire show like that," explains Tambe. The isolated intimacy provided by the headphones works for his play too. “All of us are enclosed in our own bubbles and have our own experience of what the world is. I think ‘Portal Waiting’ deals with some of those ideas," he signs off.
Portal Waiting will be staged at 6 pm on 19 March at the Shri Ram Centre Auditorium, New Delhi.
Deepali Dhingra is a Delhi-based culture writer.
