Three Interesting Plays- An Evening With Anton Chekhov, Afterlife Of Birds and Ms Meena

I used to be a regular spectator of plays, mostly in English and rarely in Kannada, presented at Rangashankara, Bangalore. But from last six months following this passion has taken a back seat due to several personal reasons. Couple of weeks back I happened to watch this collection of four short plays exhibited as An Evening With Anton Chekhov in Rangashankara. That prompted me to write this post about that play and two other plays that I watched sometime back, but never managed to write about in this space- Afterlife of Birds and Ms Meena. 

An Evening With Anton Chekhov is a collection of short plays by Chekhov basically dealing with frustrations happening to people while dealing with surroundings. Directed by Anmol Vellani, all of these plays has one male protagonist's monologue were he vents his frustrations about life, job, monotony, society, physical weakness, old age etc. The beauty is that never for a moment during the show audience are made to feel bogged down by the continuous cribbing, thanks to clever scripting and brilliant acting. We all had a good laugh. But we also identified with the plight of these men and sympathized with them. I am sure all of us felt within ourselves the presence of them at one point of time or another. 

Afterlife of Birds, an award winning play directed by Abhishek Majumdar deals with several important aspects of modern life- terrorism, loyalty, patriotism, importance of family and such. Major incentive for me to watch this play was seeing Revathy, one of the best actor in the country performing live. The play follows two narratives that meets at the end- one about the relationship between two women who joins LTTE together and another about the relationship between a father who is a bandwallah performing in the Republic Day Parade and his terrorist son who want to disrupt the parade as a suicide bomber. One of the best things I feel is that the play never tries to be judgemental about the politics behind terrorism. It just portrays certain situations where people need to confront their ideologies, live with them, or oppose them. 

A thought provoking script backed by powerful performances makes this play a must watch. Ms Meena is a play directed by Rajiv Krishnan and deals with the vices of materialism. The play is very colorful and told in a very retro style of way. People of Pitchampuram, a poverty stricken village, are eagerly awaiting for Ms Meena, formerly Asha, a popular movie star who used to live in that village before becoming so. She is coming back to film her last movie and has promised to deliver them out of poverty, but at a price. Performances and innovative presentation makes it worth watching.

Treadmill: A Never Ending Run

Treadmill is a Hindi play written by Sandeep Shikhar and directed by Abhishek Majumdar.  It is a comedy about the futility and emptiness experienced on the run for survival in the modern world. Treadmill is a metaphor used throughout the play for depicting the never ending run without any aim. After a session on treadmill you realize that you have not reached any where, you are on the starting point itself. 

Four characters enact all the characters. The play starts with a couple deciding to part. Then the hero meets a guy to whom he tells his story. How he meets the girl, falls in love and manages to marry her. From then onwards it is a downward spiral. Days and months passes by when their life gets into the prison of routine, work, communication by SMS. Slowly different characters from different walks of life emerges on the stage. The common point that binds them all is their never ending search, one which does not get them any where unfortunately. Finally the guy who hears the story becomes a part of it. He claims that the story is his. In the end audience realizes that what they just saw was an episode from their life. 

Great acting and superb direction. The plot is a bit confusing initially, but slowly gets engaging. What would have been a monotonous grey depiction of a married couple's life gets its colors from many interesting sub characters coming on stage at various points of play with their existential burdens on the shoulders. All in all a good watch...

Alone in a small world..

Few years back a pilot saw a man struggling in ice in Greenland and saved his life by picking him up. He was arrested immediately after landing. The person was Hamidur Rahman, a Bangladeshi engineer, who was trying to walk 200 kilometers, to Canada, in subzero temperature, with just a stove and wet matches to keep himself warm. 

The documentary play, "A Small, Small World", tells the tragic tale of Hamidur Rahman collected and edited from interviews, videos, letters and snippets of talks from people associated from various phases of his life. The format of the play is very interesting and unique. Two actors enact different scenes from the life of Hamid, like chameleons going under the skins of characters from around the world. A  miniature set is kept at a corner of the stage and via a cam the images are projected life size on the white screen. The actors introduce themselves with their names and as Suthradhar in Sanskrit plays, narrates the story through the eyes of different people. They even interact with the audience. A personal feel is given when audience are made to sit close to the stage, instead of the distant galleries. 

The play is enacted by two wonderful actors, a German and an Indian. Konradin Kunze and Abhishek Majumdar. (Alka, your good friend :). And I should say he is amazing! Nothing short of amazing! Loved him in that interrogation scene where he sits on chair as Hamid and Kunze slowly zooms the camera towards his face and slowly into the eyes, and then the screen is filled with fear and angst from the mind of the illegal immigrant. No words!) 

The google earth scenes where also very effective. Abhishek stands near the screen and Kunze, projects the map of the country where Hamid is next heading to with the help of Camera and a small globe, just the size of a tennis ball. The zooming effect of Google Earth is replicated on screen. But the master stroke comes in climax when all of a sudden a real clip from Hamid's life, one that we saw just a few moments back is played and the effect on viewer's mind is just catastrophic. 

Hamid moves from Bangladesh to Malaysia, to Germany, to Denmark, Greenland and just fails to reach Canada, all in search of a place to live. The play uncovers the struggle of a common man on a time of globe trotting, for his basic right of a place to live his life. Hamid consumes antidepressants and succumbs to death, but the unanswered questions he left on our face is just haunting....       

A Quest for Home

Harlesden High Street is an English play written by Abhishek Majumdar, set in London with three Pakistani immigrants as the main characters. He has won the Metroplus Playwright award for this play in 2008. The play deals with search for identity by the working middle class who are away from their roots. All three characters are constantly on a search for Home, the metaphor for an identity in a land where they had taken shelter from a long time, but still not become their own. 

Rehaan, a second generation immigrant is running a Pak cash and carry shop with his friend Kareem who wants to take his mother for an eye surgery, in Harlesden High Street, known for its immigrant population. The store does not earn them enough for that and this causes clashes between each other. The preoccupation with selling causes a void in their personal lives too.  Rehaan lives with his father's ghost who has very high ambitions for his son, which he is not able to fulfill. Both Kareem and Rehaan are on search for a way to sell their goods, when they are not comparing the virtues of Karachi,  with the indifference and prejudices of natives. Ammi, Kareem's mother lives in past, recollecting about her husband and feeling bad about her deteriorating eye sight.

After a thorough soul searching caused by increasing frustration, the three protagonists finds the truth that all people are same and it is up to them to built up their home by working together. A rain causes them to make the shop a shelter and results in a good business. The rain of love and harmony ultimately makes them rooted in Harlesden High Street.