"The title may scare you and well it should. Paraya isn’t a swear word, though many have been smacked as kids for saying it. It means other. Not ours. Not of us.
The setting is a dystopia where a repressive state herds its citizenry into class-based zones and medicates them on a drug that induces patriotism and conformity. Paraya tells the story of what happens the day drug stops working."
- Shehan Karunathilake, LIFE ONLINE
If Paraya is an ‘immersive show’ (as suggested in the document attached to the ticket), it would be accurate to say that the immersion began right at the entrance to Hotel Rio. As I entered this neglected and mistreated edifice, I encountered a security checkpoint where I was issued a temporary travel visa to enter an alternative nation located in the symbolic sphere (possibly Jung’s collective unconscious!). While taking a curious walk around, I noticed the insignia of the nation: an eye. The irony of that symbol became apparent only after the end of the show: whereas an eye has strong connotations of vision, foresight, in this nation – driven to a rare kind of conformity through a psychedelic drug called Upekka – the eye stands for conformity of vision. In other words, vision in this nation is wholesome only when it conforms to one meaning – that meaning is one already-given by the state. Thus the tag-line of the nation: Unity, Conformity, Victory. Anything else, of course, is Paraya!
-Lal Madewattegedara, Hit by Paraya
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Logo Design
SPACES
Factors such as safety, ambience and traffic flow were very important given the state of the site and the immersive aspect of the drama.
Conceptualizing and designing the spaces inhabited by the main characters. Exuding the persona of the inhabitant through a space played dominant factor in designing a space. This was done so by carefully detailing the colors, sizes and visual guides to be placed within the space.
Spaces should be visually arresting and close inspection should reward the audience with clues that provide necessary and unnecessary insight into the character.
SITE
The hotel itself stands empty – slender trees grow in cracks in its walls. Scorch marks on the hotel’s blackened facade are a reminder of its dark history. It’s looked like this since it was thoroughly looted and torched in the ’83 riots and now only the first floor is occupied by lodgers who make do with the simplest of facilities.
-Smriti Daniel, Paraya getting curiouser and curiouser
The site chosen was a derelict mega hotel, adjoining the infamous Rio adult movie theatre, that has been abandoned for over 30 years since the 1983 riots.
Although spaces were blocked off for safety purposes, the dilapidated hotel and it's seedy neighbourhood, fed into the dystopian world the drama pursued.
