Running Out of Time: A Review

Ashoka’s first choice-driven play, titled ‘Out of Time’ has two meanings. “You are out of time because the period of time is repeating, but you’re also out of time because at the end of the play, one of the two characters passes away, or stops existing in that same plane of existence,” says Aritra Mukhopadhyay (UG'27), the director and writer of the play. Mukhopadhyay drew inspiration from games like Cyberpunk 2077, Witcher 3, and Disco Elysium while writing the play with a team of The Green Room members. “I feel like video games are a medium that can implicate the audience directly in their stories, so you become a part of the story. You are not just the audience but you become the story in a lot of ways,” he says. 

The choice-driven play with six possible endings was presented on 29th and 30th April, 2025 in the Blackbox Theatre. Coloured cardboard pieces were handed to the audience before they entered the theatre. The audience made their first choice in the play by picking either orange or purple to determine the colour of the main character’s (the Photographer’s) jacket.

It had only been a minute since the audience settled into their seats at the Blackbox, and aspects of the play already stood out. Black and white photographs strung and stuck across the stage, a bed with a cosy quilt, and a sweater of a colour which one would immediately connect to grandmothers, draped over a green shelf. As the intro to ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ by Radiohead played, it evoked an almost unsettling energy, contrasting with the homely setting of the stage. The scene seemed to both approach and recede from the familiarity of home. Indeed, this was the pivotal message of the play: that which appears too safe and familiar must be questioned, for at times we are blinded by denial. 

 At the start of his journey at The Green Room, Mukhopadhyay was asked what kind of a play he would like to put up with TGR, and his reply at the time was – maybe a choice-driven play, an idea that seemed very far-fetched at that time. Months later, along with a team of TGR writers and actors, the dream was turned into a reality. 

The lengthy script made it difficult to memorise lines, and Liam Munshi (UG'28), who played the Joker, recalls that he and Anushree Pareek (UG'28) improvised the endings based on what they thought they could remember. The actors became so familiar with the script that it was impossible to discern any inconsistency. The team took up the additional challenge of navigating the concept of a time loop alongside attempting a choice-based play. Munshi said it made “the choice-making very difficult because the whole thing about a loop is, you can’t control it. But this play is about giving the audience control.” The style and presentation of the play were in keeping with the underlying theme. 

The stage was a live, pulsing organism in synchrony with the inner world of the characters. Projections of faces, and dark pathways between buildings, after events had finished unfolding on the stage, left us with hanging afterimages. When the lighting turned bright red, for a moment, the black and white photographs all turned red too. These images fleshed out the idea of the power of narratives, of our susceptibility to it. Projections of faces, and dark pathways between buildings, after events had finished unfolding on the stage, left us with hanging afterimages. When the lighting turned bright red, for a moment, the black and white photographs all turned red too. These images fleshed out the idea of the power of narratives, of our susceptibility to it. Symbolically, the voice of the time loop was a montage of the voices of the different characters, indicating that the loop is our own construction. A screen at the back was used in the Blackbox for a theatrical production for the first time. When the audience made choices for the Photographer, what was our aim? Who was she to us? Did we feel we controlled her? What was the play meant to do? We perhaps have some of the answers.

The play did the important job of making the audience turn inward and ask if we are fully aware of the choices we make daily. The Joker says to the Photographer: you’ve taken the same photo a few thousand times now; every morning you wake up, stub that toe, eat the same food, pick the same clothes, meet the same damn people. “We’re all stuck.” Does anyone know they are in a loop until something snaps them out of it? The play reminds us that we are unreliable narrators of our own lives. 

Excitingly, the play will have more developments in the future, since it has six endings and the Ashoka audience has only seen two of them. “Next semester we are going to record every possibility and turn it into an interactive movie, but we also want to explore the possibility of putting this up in the fests, and we’re definitely going to put it up at least once next semester,” says Mukhopadyay. He expresses the hope of putting up more choice-based plays and movies on campus. “I don’t want this to be a one-time thing, I want this to be something that people explore and see as something that’s very real, and very possible,” says Aritra. While reflecting on the production semester, the co-director and co-writer of the play, Nayantara Pal (UG'28) says, “..we had quite a few new members join the team and although I was a bit nervous whether they would be able to immediately resonate with the script quickly, everyone felt the play become close to their heart really quick and I think that helped the play turn out the way it did.” The 120+ page-long script and six endings provide scope for further development and performance of the production — ‘Out of Time’ is a hopeful step forward in the performing arts and writing culture on campus.