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.

The Real Inspector Hound: Parodying Mystery

In my last post on Agatha Christie, I had mentioned about a play that parodies her immensely successful play The Mousetrap. The Real Inspector Hound, written by Tom Stoppard is the play that satirizes the conventions of crime and mystery dramas made popular by stalwarts like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. A few months back, an enactment of this play directed by Nayantara Kotian and Prashant Prakash and presented by Quaff Theatre, Mumbai was done at Ranga Shankara, Bangalore. The show was immensely funny and engaging. Though it was a satire on the whodunit genre, the suspense was tight throughout the play till the terrific convention breaking climax.  

The play breaks the fourth wall and is enacted as a play within a play. It floors the audience before the opening scene when across the audience, opposite to a carefully set stage; one of the characters sits and waits impatiently for the play to begin. Then it is revealed that it is the theatre critic Moon, who is just a second string guy called in to review the play in the absence of Higgs, the main critic. He is joined by Birdboot, another critic, a womanizer who praises the pretty actresses in his reviews in exchange of sexual favors.

The play inside the play happens in a country manor, surrounded by jungle, swamps and a cliff- a convenient claustrophobic setting where no one from outside can come in and the suspicion is only on  insiders. The characters are a widow, Cynthia, whose husband was dead in mysterious circumstances, her good lady friend, Felicity, the young man Simon who used to be in love with Cynthia but is trying to woo the hostess, the crippled brother of Cynthia’s dead husband, a maid servant and an unnoticed corpse. A radio message that a mad man prone to violent behavior is on lose is thrown in thereby causing frantic reactions. Inspector Hound, in search of the maniac killer enters the house and finds the corpse. He starts his investigation in the typical Holmes style.  Slowly the critics whose tragic lives are paralleled in the play get entangled with the play and they too get involved in the mess with tragic results.

The play works in many levels, as an absurd comedy, a spoof on mystery drama, a social satire on hierarchical set up and an attempt to break the difference between fantasy and reality. Stoppard also criticizes the double standards carried out by different people in society, thereby living a dual life, one which is real and another which they want to be.

Incidentally I happened to go through another experiment with mystery novels. The Curious Case of 221B is a novel by Partha Basu that tries to view Holmes canon in a different way. The author tries to make a story out of inconsistencies of Conan Doyle stories. But unfortunately the end result is an uninspiring, lazy collection of Holmes stories that does not connect with the reader. I could not go through more than three stories that in no way enrich your Holmes experience. So The Curious Case of 221B becomes the first book in decades that I abandoned halfway.   

The other side of history...

The Other Side of History is a play directed by Prakash Belawadi, based on the play Hindi play Baaki Ithihaas by Badal Sircar staged at Rangashankara, Bangalore. 

It is a striking examination of middle class mentality. The main characters are a middle class husband and wife Sharad and Vasanti, both academics waiting for the big break. One day they read in newspaper about the suicidal death of a college professor, who was their acquaintance some time back. Vasanti, an aspiring writer, starts writing a story imagining  the reasons of  the professor. Sharad, after hearing her version of the story, does not feel it is right. He thinks of another story. Finally the dead man's ghost appears and narrates the real reason of his death. Sharad seems to identify himself with the plight of the dead man. 

The play make the spectator think about the plight of a common man, leading a common life, when lot of uncommon things happen around him. Violence, war and blood shed and all the unjust world, though seemingly not affecting him, causes ripples in the consciousness. A meaningful, well acted attempt, though not as gripping as it should have been.    

The memorandum: Language Troubles.

There are many instances in history where a work of art- a novel, a poem or a play, was made for the purpose of criticizing certain corrupt elements of the society, and even after decades, after the society in question is long dead, these works still stand relevant. Like Joseph Heller's Catch 22, written as an antiwar novel, can be an allegory of corruption in any organisation existing today. Or parallels of George Orwell's novels, that were anti communist propaganda, can be spotted in any capitalist or semi capitalist societies in modern times.

The Memorandum is a political satire written by Czech playwright and first President of Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel , to showcase the inefficient and absurd operation of the Communist regime that ruled Czechoslovakia then. Now when the same play is re-watched much of the happenings seems absolutely plausible in any multinational corporate giants' offices. 

The Managing Director of a company Josef Gross, is struggling to make out the meaning of a memo that he received that morning which is written in an absurd language. His secretary informs him that it is a new language, Ptydepe, that is introduced in the firm to make the work place communication efficient and error free. The move is made by his deputy Ballas. Gross wants Ballas to cancel this absurd introduction, but Ballas refuses and gets ready to fight his boss. Some dirty office politics follows. Gross cuts a sorry figure when he goes from department to department to get the memo in Ptydepe translated. The segments were the teaching of the new language is shown is hilarious. Gross steps down as Managing Director when the office watcher, a worker whose job is to spy on others, finds that he broke the rules in getting the memo translated. The new boss Ballas finds it equally difficult to manage things as it goes out of his hands too. Finally Gross is reinstated as MD and ultimate causality is a typist, who helps Gross in translating the text out of pity. She is fired. Ptydepe is abandoned and a new language is introduced to better it. 

Boy with suitcase: Another tale of displacement

Boy With a Suitcase is an English play that I saw a couple of months back from Rangashankara, Bangalore. At that time I had watched quite a few plays with similar themes and I was not interested to repeat what I wrote just a week or two back. That is why I just postponed writing about this delightful play.

Boy With a Suitcase is an Indo German joint production- Rangashankara and Schnaawl. Directed by Andrea Gronemeyer, it is the story of a boy who had to travel to London from his unspecified home town when his home is destroyed in war.

Displacement is a major recurring theme in contemporary art- be it novel, plays or poetry. I think the biggest challenge that modern man has to face is to adjust to the changes he has to face when he is forced to get displaced from his home. The causes may be different- war, search of better living conditions, dissatisfaction.. In middle ages, it was pretty rare for someone to leave the comfort of his home and travel to the uncertainty of distant lands. That may be the reason why we have celebrated all those rare journeys by making them legends- actual and fictional, like those of Sindbad or that of Ibn u Batuta.

But in modern times, each of us is Sindbad, embarking on our personal adventure with a string attached to a home that we had possessed once upon a time. The boy also has heard the story of Sindbad and is excited to start his journey to distant land of London, where his sister lives. His parents have send him off in a bus with just a suitcase so that atleast he will be safe from a raging war. The play draws a parallel with the journeys of Sindbad by making the boy go through some far fetched situations, where he meets some very peculiar characters.

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...

Chimeras: Stripping the legends

Chimeras is an English play produced by One dot oh! and directed by Shrikrishna S, based on three short stories by Shashi Deshpande, shown at Rangashankara last week. It is a fusion of Dance and drama, the dance part choreographed by Chitra Aravind of Rhythmotion Dance Co. 

All stories portrayed are derived from various instances in Mahabharatha, and in each one a character introspects the events unfolded in front of them, giving new insights into the epic. The dance performances interwoven in between, suitably adds to the narrative. 

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In the first story, Draupadi ventures into the hall were Krishna and Pandava princes are discussing their strategy of the imminent war against Kaurava. Abhimanyu's wedding with Uttara has just been over, and the talk of killing, destruction and the biggest war mankind has ever seen provides striking contrast to the mood. All are unilateral in their opinion that before war is commenced, a peace talk with Duryodhana has to be done, to avoid mutual killing. They propose Krishna to meet up with them and ask for half the kingdom. If they do not agree, at least for five villages. Draupadi is devastated after hearing about the peace talk. She feels she was the real casualty of the enmity with Kauravas and her husbands are not ready to give justice to her. She makes a monologue, exposing the cowardice of her five husbands and Krishna's double standards. Many ghosts of past comes out from the open Pandora's box.  Her special love towards Arjuna, her disappointment when brothers decide to share her after hearing Kunti's words... But finally she comes to know of the futility of peace talk. She knows that they will not get anything out of that. She also comes to know that her husbands also know that and war is what they want. They are playing this game to make her and her revenge responsible to the imminent destruction. 

In the second story, the war has come to a bloody end. All Kaurava princes except Duryodhana are dead. He fled the battle field and come near a dirty pond. His mind is all in turmoil. In the resulting monologue, he bears out his past jealousy and enmity towards Pandavas. And after he descends into the pond, a realization comes to him, that these are all superficial and what lies ahead is what that matters. That the real and final victory comes for the dead. Armed by this new found wisdom, Duryodhana comes out of the pond to fight the enemies and embrace death.  

The third story happens some time after the war, Dhritharashtra and Gandhari gets ready to go to the jungle. Kunti decides to accompany them much to the dismay of others. Along with Sanjaya, they embarks on Vanaprastha. One day Kunti decides to leave the old couple so that they can spent some time for themselves and goes for a walk with Sanjaya. She thinks of the past events, from the time she married Pandu, her loveless marriage, sharing her husband with the more beautiful Madhuri, her children, birth of Karna, the many hardships they had to encounter. She confesses that her words to share Draupadi among her five sons was not accidental and a well thought plan to avoid them getting divided. She is amazed when Draupadi shows more affection to Gandhari after the war than to her and realizes that it is due to the fact that both Draupadi and Gandhari are childless and Kunti still has her five children safe. Through her talk to Sanjaya, we come to know that Kunti is not that silent, all suffering mother who always get sidelined. It is infact, many of the clever decisions that she took shaped up the history. Play ends when a wild fire engulfs the forest and Kunti sees her old companions ready to embrace death. She walks towards fire to join them. 

The play is spell binding in many aspects. The acting, dance performances and stage setting all are perfect. The insightful dialogue makes strong impact. The play strips the mighty legends off the mystery that surrounds them and makes them share the pedestal with common people. The contemporary undertones of the play also cannot be ignored. Several parts especially in the first story makes you remember the conflict with our neighboring country.

The interview: Dirty corporations.

Watched this play called The Interview, directed by Akash Khurana, and presented by Akvarious at Ranga Shankara last week. The play is an attempt to unveil the ugly face of hypocrisy in the corporate world.  As the name indicates, the play chronicles the challenges a person has to face to secure a job in a corporation. 

It starts with a nervous Karan waiting for the interview to start, like any other aspiring interviewee only to be bowled over totally once it starts. It starts well, with one peg of whiskey... but what do this crazy interviewer want from him... or is he ready to do what is expected of him? 

The intention is good, acting keeps you engaged, but was that much hoohaa required?... Too much of slapstick comedy dilutes the effect.. for me at least. And I hated Keith... He was getting on my nerves.. May be that was the whole intention. 

All in all it is watchable, but nothing special and a bit tiring... 

A Guy Thing: Analysing Being a Man...

Being a man is one of the most stereotyped attributes around... A real man is believed to wear innerwear unwashed for a rather prolonged period of time, he leaves the toilet lid always up, watches foot ball or cricket or wrestling or any MANly sports event, has a stubble and may be a scar on his face that he claims to be the result of a fight with a foe whom he mercilessly vanquished, but which in reality is caused when his friend asked for a loan while he was shaving and he twisted his face to indicate a refusal. When someone behaves against the conventions, he is labelled as weak, infirm or in worst case queer. So many of us, acts according to the stereotype for pleasing others and ends up deep rooting the notions.

Last week this play called, A Guy Thing directed by Akash Khurana based on The Dirty Talk by Micheal Puzzo, presented by Akvarious was staged in Rangashankara. Basically this one explores the dilemma faced by the stronger sex, while they try to be the stronger.  Do you have to live according to the conventions of the society, or have a life according the choice of your inner being?

The story takes place in a stormy night inside a cabin, somewhere in a remote place. A very masculine, brutal, abusive guy, Mitch is stranded there with Lino, a nerdy, feminine guy. Mitch's wife has just left him and he meet Lino who claims to be a woman, in an internet chat room. They have some very intimate moments on chat. Mitch gives the directions to his house and finds Lino there, instead of the blonde, sexy girl whom he thought he was chatting to. Furious, he accuses Lino of lying and even orders him to hide behind a dresser. They shouts and screams at each other throughout, accusing each other for telling lies, but finally opens up. A totally confused Mitch, who wants accomodate his wife in his life and at same time want his father to approve of his manhood, confess about the situation in which he had to breakup with his wife. Lino, who lives in the garage of his sister's house, and stalks internet chat rooms disguising his gender, for partners in sex, seems content and happy with his petty life. The play ends when Mitch starts seeing Lino with tolerance and even shows a nod of friendship.

The dialogues are funny and acting by Ali fazal and Neil Bhoopalam is excellent.  Though initially, the characterisation seems much cliched, later on it is revealed to be intended. The play tries to make us look beyond stereotypes. The language is loaded with expletives, so a word of caution to those who are weak in that department... Watch at your own risk.

Necessary Targets

If you are keen on watching plays, you would have surely heard about, Vagina Monologues, an award winning, smash hit play written by Eve Ensler, a monologue on stage, endorsed by many celebrities including Whoopi Goldberg, Glenn Glose and Mallika Sherawat in India. Last week in Ranga Shankara, Bangalore, they organised a screening of Necessary Targets, another play written by same author.

Basically, Necessary targets follows the same often repeated theme of difficulties facd by civilians, especially women, during war. What makes it different is the presence of stark realism and the absence of any dogma that may cloud the minds of viewer. Directed by Prakash Balwadi, the play boasts of some exceptionally talented array of actors. 

It is the story of two women, J S, a middle aged, matured, psychiatrist and Mellissa, a hyper active, ambitious, experianced (though young) journalist who goes to a refugee camp for providing counselling to the trauma affected women there. The refugees never bothers to pour their mind to them as the experts thought they would do. But as time passes, J S builts a relationship with the women and starts finding the answers of trouble she has in her life. 

Image courtesy: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/glam-sham/gripping-tale-refugees-842#comment-10265

The 39 Steps (a play): Hilarious Hitchcock..

Pic courtesy: goodliver.wordpress.com

Hitchcock is associated with serious, shocking, thrilling visuals. And "The 39 Steps" is one of the most acclaimed movies the ace director has made and is considered to be an influence on his later works. So when this movie is remade on stage, as a farce, it may generate quite a stir among purists. "The 39 Steps" play, written by Patrick Barlow, is quiet successful as a spoof of the movie and numerous other movies of spy and thriller genre. Last Sunday, the Indian version of this play, a joint venture of Evam and Radaan, was shown at Ranga Shankara, Bangalore. An attempt which have, as they tell before the show:

Sex appeal, fights, Scotland Yard, love, betrayal, car chases, silk stockings, French men, English women and murder..

The 39 steps, is an attempt to show a whole movie, scene by scene on stage... What is the big deal..? Four lead actors plays around 140 characters, with great comic timing and imaginative narration! Several scenes require very imaginative setting, like a stage show or a scene involving the hero jumping from a moving train, which they convincingly portrays with considerable skill and ease. 

The play starts with a bored Richard Hannay, deciding to do something great, eventful, historic and brave that day and finally decides to watch a play. He attends the performance by Mr Memory, who has an ability to recall any trivial facts from memory. A fight breaks out and our hero finds himself accompanying a beautiful Annebella Schmidt to his flat. She says about a secret plan named 39 steps, by a militant to steal military secrets out of Britain. That night she is killed and Hannay is the suspect. He sneaks out and travels to Scotland. Pursued by police and militants alike, he embarks on a cat and mouse journey that ends finally in Mr Memory's program in London where in a final show down, secrets are revealed. 

Pic courtesy: go-nxg.com

Hannay is played by the lead actor, Naveen Balachandran, three other women who falls for him are played by Renu Abraham and other two actors, Karthik and Sunil, play every other characters like milkman, maid, farmer, villain, sheep, police, passengers and even some non living objects like trees and bushes with chameleon like ease, sometimes just by a change of the hat. (That train sequence is just hilarious.) Scenes from several other movies are also spoofed fleetingly. The motel in Psycho, chase with plane in North By Northwest, King Kong, Matrix...    

I would recommend not missing this one... So next time it is in town, get on the 39 steps...

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....       

Comedy of errors.. !

Last day I happened to watch a modern version of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors. Although the name of play was quite incomprehensible to me, the experience was just awesome. We, audience were laughing our heart out and applauding from the word go. Each act, each dialogue, each minor expression from actors is that funny. 

An old man visits the Mayor, to ask his help in searching his son and servant who has eloped from home with money to start business. The man has one more son who happens to be twin brother of the missing son who went missing 20 years and back and the servant's twin brother too went missing with him. So in the town there are two pair of identical twins, and all hell breaks loose. Elder son, who reached town long back has married a rich man's stupid daughter and took to drinks after marriage gets on the rocks. The elder servant is an idiot. The younger brother who steals money from father is a bigger idiot and pisses off his younger servant, who happens to be a ruffian. And there is some Priyadarshan style running around due to the confusions.

The double role is the one that I enjoyed the most. How fast, they change their styles and how convincingly! Had an enjoyable evening. (Yeah and that Amitabh- Govinda starrer with similar story was copied from Shakespeare! Of all things in the world... )

   

Maya Bazaar: A Veiled View

Surabhi is a traveling drama troupe from Andhra Pardesh, that tours the villages and temples and performs plays, mostly devotional dramas. The most remarkable thing about them is that they are 125 years old. And all on stage and off stage artists, about 50 of them- including kids and women who all perform, are family members. K M Madhusudanan's documentary chronicles the history of Surabhi through the words of its lead actor.

Surabhi was started when a family was invited to perform a puppet show in the house of some influential persons in Surabhi village. Instead of puppet show, they performed a live show of Kichaka Vadha. The play became popular and Surabhi went on to become what it is now. Another peculiarity of Surabhi is that, at a time when ladies never used to come out of theur home, the women acted in plays. Later many women went on to act in movies and shot to fame. The dedication of the artists is what makes this family a succes story. The policy is to act the play even if there is one person as the viewer! There was a case when a pregnant woman delivered on stage during acting...

But the documentary is very superficial. There is a scene in the starting where an artist puts on makeup behind a veil. The feeling after the movie finishes is that the veil is never lifted. Incoherency, slow pace and non- focusing on the human story is also a big let down. Just the history of Surabhi is told and then some feeble attempts to draw parallel between the structure of the play and silent movies of Phalke era is done. No interaction is done with the members other than the lead actor and the covering of events is also very amateurish. If director had attempted to unveil Maaya in the Bazaar, it would have been a worthy watch.

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.  

Amazing Live theater

Watched a play on a live theater. An amazing experiance! Better than movies if the handling is good. The language was a bit incomprehensible, but the acting made up for that. The way the stage is treated, according to situation, the speed in which props appear and disappear and the way actors move on the stage without goofing up... Just awesome to watch. Add some apt lighting and live music, it was an evening well spent.

The play was a comedy of misunderstandings between two couples, a pair of lovers and a pair of married couples. The lover gives his photo to  his girl. She faints on the way home and a doctor helps her. Doctor's wife sees them and misunderstands. The photo gets into her hands. What follows is a comedy of errors. The slapstick is just awesome, two servents were the best and they got a great deal of claps.  Although the story was a bit stale, the situations and the reactions from actors was what made the play special... Great effort...

Hayavadana: A Fable on Identity Crisis

Hayavadana (The man with face of a horse) is offspring of a princess and a white horse and he craves for completion, which is in his view, being a man. But Hayavadana and his quest for an identity is not the main story of Girish Karnad's epic play by the same name. It is just a backdrop or a subplot to tell a more bizarre story of three persons, a woman and two men, who is entangled in a web of desire, passion and identity crisis. Hayavadana is a story derived from Kathasarithsagara, retold by Thomas Mann and readapted for stage by Girish Karnad. So the story is a fusion of Eastern philosophy and Western sensibility. Thomas Mann goes beyond the riddle posed in Kathasarithsagara and gives it a practical answer. When it comes through Karnad, the story reaches a full circle, becoming a moral story or parable for Indian minds were a dispute of Eastern and Western identity is battled continuously.    

Suthradhara or Bhaagavata is about to tell the story of two friends who are in no way identical, when a man with a horse face, Hayavadana, asks him for help. He is tired of his dual identity and want to become a complete man. Bhaagavata advises him to go to Goddess Kaali and ask help. When Hayavadana goes off to a distant Kaali temple, the story starts. Devadatta and Kapila are very close friends, former a handsome but physically weak, Brahmin poet and latter a dark, but solidly built Kshatriya athlete. Devadatta falls in love with Padmini and Kapila goes to ask her hand for his friend. After meeting Padmini, Kapila is convinced that he is a better match for her than Devadatta, and falls in love, but the love for his friend takes upper hand. 

The marriage happens, but later Padmini becomes more attracted to well built Kapila, which burns Devadutta's jealous heart. While on a journey Padmini, humiliates Devadutta for his physical weakness, in-front of Kapila, and a grief stricken Devadutta chops off his own head going to a nearby Kaali temple. Kapila feels he is responsible and he too follows suit. Padmini when sees this cannot stop her grief and she too decides to commit suicide. Kaali appears and offers to give life back to the friends. She tells her to keep their respective heads on their bodies and gives life to them. 

Now due to confusion (or may be wantedly) , Padmini goofs up and exchanges the heads. When they are alive a fight starts between friends for Padmini. Both claim to be Devadatta. Finally a saint declares that head is the master of the body and allows the athletic body with Devadatta's head to take her. A dejected Kapila decides to spent the rest of his life in jungle. Kathasarithsagara stops here. But in the play, the story moves on. Within some time, to the horror of Padmini, again the bodies attains their former respective selves due to the lifestyle and marriage is in shambles. She dreams of Kapila and one day goes to meet him in jungle and claims her right to his now athletic body. A fight ensues and both friends kills each other. They are not even sure they killed each other or was it a suicide, because while striking other, they are killing their own body. Padmini makes a pyre for both and does Sati in it.

Whle Bhaagavatha concludes the play, Hayavadana comes again. Kaali gave much desired perfection to his body, but instead of making him a proper human, he is turned to a full horse! Bhaagavatha advises him to enjoy the completeness and don't fret, which Hayavadana obeys and gets off the stage with a loud neigh. 

Man tries to attain perfection, but never reaches it. It is the basis of all troubles. The play shows the importance of living the life, perfectly aware of ones defects and making the most of what one have to lead a happy life. In the starting there is a prayer to Lord Ganesha, and here Karnad question the answer given in Kathasarithsagara, that head is the master. Ganesha who is told to be the master of all knowledge, is having the head of an elephant. So, the answer given in the fable is incomplete and this play is an attempt to complete it. In this period of multiple identities, the play gives a strong message to confused souls.