Erendira!

Theatre Group – Unknown
Venue – LTG Auditorium
Partners – None
Title – Innocent Erendira
Genre- Novel Enactment (Innocent Erendira by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

I would not wait for the end of the review to comment on this one, undoubtedly , the best performance I have witnessed; not only for the tight and gripping story line, but also for the on stage persona of the actors. For an hour and a quarter, I was transposed to foreign lands, not one but two. The Latin America so characteristic of Marquez’s works and its Indian rendition set in rural Rajasthan with the rural dialect enunciated in its real rabidity.

The story itself unfolds like a bizarre daydream that follows a 14 year old Eréndira as she is plagued by the "wind of her misfortune." She has a devilish grandmother who makes poor Erendira work for her day and night and does not let the Erendira see any of the beautiful outside world. It is this “wind of misfortune” that causes Eréndira to unwittingly burn down her grandmother's lavish villa.

Upon seeing the ruin and ashes the Grandmother summons Eréndira and declares, "It would take a lifetime to pay back the debt you owe me, and you will have to repay it". Pitiful Erendira agrees and thus begins her journey across pastures, plateaus, mountains, borders, rivers, seas and borders. The deviant Grandmother turns her into a tireless money-minting machine making men across the globe pine for her and pay handsome cash rewards to “devour” her once.

While this is happening, a little volcano smolders within the little girl who has now learnt the lessons on life the hard way. The audience sees the gradual transformation of an innocent Erendira into a whore who enjoys every endeavor with new clients each day and how she dictates her own terms in choosing them. But her innate desire to take the revenge on her vile Grandmother only takes shape when she meets Ulysses, a truck driver who does her maiden “spell” with Erendira during one of his overnight stays. Meeting him reminds Erendira of the emotion called “love” that was long replaced by lust in her dictionary. She discovers the love for Ulysses and so does he.

Erendira pleads Ulysses to get rid of her Grandmother and the love-stricken man obliges. He adds poison to a dish Erendira prepares for her grandmother but the poison is not enough to counter the poison already embodied in the old Hag .She survives. Blinded in love, Ulysses takes her apart with a knife.

The most remarkable twist in the story arrives here as Erendira does what a real whore would do, she runs away with the riches earned by her exploits to a distant land, ever so unseen, ever so unexplored, ever so remote leaving her lover crying in agony.

The highlights of the performance:

• Superlative Lighting and choreography – the Latino Music that takes over the narrative from time to time is spellbinding. The dances are also Latino and add to the experience. Ulysses is almost as supple as a gymnast in the scene when he lynches the hag.
  
• Character/actor exchange – A novel idea indeed! There are essentially three characters in the play, but there are at least 9 actors. The actors for the central role of Erendira keep changing as the story unfurls, her tender teens are played by a girl with similar appearance and her vile twenties by an actor who can be easily mistaken for someone on drugs (with eyes popping out).Also portrayed to great effect is the scene where Erendira baths her Grandmother, the larger than life grandmother on the couch is depicted by the rest of the cast together with joined hands.
  
• Rustic Language – The Indian version of the story has been transposed to Rajasthan and the director showed no reservations in the choice of words used in the dirty trade of prostitution. It makes the play and adult only affair, but adds to the morbidity.
  
  Eréndira is a compelling story to say the least. It is funny yet eerie, intriguing yet grotesque, and I thought it was amazing. Every piece of description and every word of dialogue work together to create the web of magic realism that dominates story line. If you like slightly dark stories of Latin American culture that have a magical twist, then Eréndira should be your first choice.
  
  Rating: 9/10 (I tend to make this scale relative now, as I have not seen a play for quite some time now J)
  
  
  

Bhookhe Navik!

Theatre Group – Mask
Venue – India Habitat Center
Partners – AS, KJ, BCM
Title – Bhookhe Navik
Genre- Social Satire

Bhookhe Navik starts off with a situation in which three persons Mota, Manjhla and Patla are asail on a ship which is devoid of any navigation devices with no shores in sight. They are the only 3 people aboard and have totally run out of any food supplies and are starving of hunger. Interestingly, the sea all around is assumed not to have any fish, on second thoughts.

The grave situation leads them to the extreme possibility of cannibalism. They finally decide that in the greater good of the society, one of them has to sacrifice himself and offer himself to be the food of the other two. But that gives rise to a debate on who will be the sacrificial lamb.

They decide to make chits and pick on from a hat. The Patla then argues that democratic procedure should be followed in selecting the candidate. The other two see the merit in his point and agree. Each one of them gets a chance to carve out a case of his importance to the society and thus plead for his survival. The target here is rejection and not selection.

The Patla, and the audience quickly sense a collusion between the Manjhla and the Mota as they openly support each other in their arguments. Votes are caste and the Patla comes out to be the dubious winner. It clearly is a case of might wins against the right as the colluding duo manage to justify Patla's selection on the basis of the fact that his Mother is dead and he doesn’t have any reason to live any longer.

A little drama unfolds as the postman swimming across the sea to deliver the letter from Patla’s mother. Patla is relieved of the tension as is now on equal footing with the other two. After a little flashback on Patla’s poverty-stricken struggle, when is mother used to roam about in the street trying in vain to sell the paintings of his artist son, Patla still finds himself the most suitable candidate for execution. He cries but only in vain as there is no one to console himself as the sea streches far out on all sides.

Amidst excellent depiction of fear of death, as the Manjhla sharpens his knives to get ready to massacre the Patla, the latter finally musters the courage to stop the injustice. And as there can be no civilized way of doing this, he stabs the Mota and the Manjhla to death and takes revenge for the torture he was subjected to by them.

There are intermediate periods when the dialogues on democracy get a bit to pedantic but kudos to Patla who manages to draw the sympathy of the audience quite early on.All in all, a slightly over dramatized depiction of the orwellian message,” All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others”. The play carries a good message with the Mota, Manjhla and the Patla, representing the affluent class, the middle class and the lower class respectively. The play reaffirms the sad truth of the Indian society that the power of the democratic institutions is dwarfed against that of the rich and the mighty. And, the most plausible way for the lower class to rectify this inequity is to “take the law in their own hands”. Sadly, the end fizzles out as populist one and avoids a constructive solution.

Rating : 6/10

What's in a Name!

Unnamed Play ( I forgot the name)
Genre – Light Comedy
Language - Hindi


This play would be remembered for the minor smirks that it brought on mine and her face. The story line is pretty simple. A patriarchal ( resembling Prithiviraj Kapoor )octogenarian recounts his youth during the British Raj. He had an elder brother who was of the real studious kind and was a firm believer in the premise that learning can only be imparted through a religious study of texts, scriptures and the epics. He himself, on the contrary was more gifted, hence could produce better examination results despite devoting majority of his time to “frivolous” activities like cricket, gulli danda and aimless wandering with local boys.

The elder brother’s characterization is that of a dim-witted but hard-working hardliner who does not change his belief despite his repeated failures. He is one of those who would burn the mid-night oil just to cram a page of text and forget it all in the morning owing to lack of proper sleep. The younger brother manages to catch up with and later on even get ahead of his not-so-gifted brother in number of years of education completed.

Moreover, quite practically, the play also depicts the urgency on the part of the elder brother to master the revered mystery called “English”, quite a contrast from the all-pervasive presence of English in the world of Upper and Middle class India today. Then, fluency in spoken English and authority in written comprehension were not qualifiers, but order winners, as far as bagging a job with the prestigious civil services was concerned. T

The entire essence of the play seems to be,” Bookish knowledge is not everything in life, education acquired by alternative means is as important and could prove decisive if coupled with the right attitude”.

Not really a must watch, but the light comedy would go down well if you can stand the long and winding sentences of the octogenarian( also the anchor of the story ) which sometime bore you because of their inaudibility.

Rating : 5/10

Kallu Nai MBBS!

Title: Kallu Nai MBBS
Group: Natsamrat
Genre: Comedy

This was the first play that I had seen here in Delhi. And it took some persuasion from pal Sahu ( one of my regular play partners) to get me going. But once I was inside the LTG auditorium , the soothing Kenny G music as the prelude made me forget all my apprehensions.

Coming from the stable of the Theater Group Natsamrat, "Kallu Nai MBBS" is a comedy which exhibits the twists and turns in the life of a barber who can barely make his ends meet and quarrels on a regular basis with his wife with the context being their inescapable poverty. Kallu tortures his wife and beats her every now and then out of frustration and despair.

Kallu's wife , encountered with an opportunity, decides to give her husband a taste of his own medicine when she manages to convince her husband to feign as a doctor and attempt to cure the daughter of an affluent dignitary with the bait of receiving a huge monetary reward in return. The enticed Kallu believes his wife and what follows at the bungalow of the dignitary is a hilarious sequence of events involving the father, the daughter, the housemaid and sundry other comical characters.

The daughter apparently has lost her voice as per father plans to marry her off to a musician with feminine characteristics. Despite his liitle knowledge of medicine, Kallu manages to bring out the fact to the fore that the daughter is feigning the disease as she is in love with someone else and does not want to lose her love at any cost.

The ending is happy as despite the thrashing that kallu receives from the rich guy, he manages to let two lovers meet culminating in their marriage.


Rating : 7/10

Bhana Ganganath

My play watching pursuits are so far restricted mostly to comedy plays for multiple reasons. First, they require the least effort to understand as compared to other moods which are not so readily grasped by my logical and professionally trained mind. Secondly , the language is relatively simple and the humour of the playwright is far more authentic then today’s tele-serial makers who just think that they can make people laugh by making characters cry, howl, squeal and react like animals and making them stand in a line in front of the camera.

This play would go down as the most forgettable play-watching activity from my side. I remember AS calling up and suggesting that we see this Comedy Play, atleast he thought so. I and DS (the guy, this time) did the tough ride from IIT to LTG banking on the information.

As it turned out, AS’s information was wrong. It was not a comedy play; it was not even a normal voice play. It was a dance drama. With small periods of voice interspersed by long and elaborate dance sequences, it was really tough to follow the story line. None of us three are such avid connoisseurs of art that we could decipher the messages hidden in the maneuvers of the ballet dancers.

The appearance of voice made our struggle even worse, as the language of the play was some remote cousin of Hindi, a very specific flavour of Kumaoni with full of archaic words. Still , our concerted efforts to latch on to little hints which were most often thrown in by a few precious common usage words or else by carefully studies eye movements, we could make a story out of the truly “modern” piece of performing art. Here goes what we could make out (wish I had the pamphlet with me at this point of time, it could have saved me some grace!!!)

It’s a love story set in the Kumaon. Ganganath is a something that closely resembled a wandering saint, or rather a peripatetic who sings eulogies to the regional deity. Bhana listen to her songs of devotion and falls in love with the singer in quick time. But the lovers face opposition from the society as Bhana belongs to an upper cast and Ganganath belongs to a lower one. Ganganath more or less accepts the society’s denial to there relationship and starts touring nearby villages doing his sacred duty. But, things turn around when he relieves the villagers of his parental village of some evil force and then the villagers are forced to change their opinion and they start seeing his as a God-send. The story finally ends with the happy reunion of Bhana and Ganganath.


Ratings: 4/10
(Not because the play was badly enacted, but because an audience having similar tastes and backgrounds would have a nightmare understanding the story line)

Play it Hard!

Its a hard-sell when you are trying to convince people to watch stage plays as an alternative to the flashy movies aired in today's trendy multiplexes.

Why?? These are some of the excuses/reasons one listens.

• Plays contain no stars ,no glamour, no futuristic sound and visual effects.
  
• The crowd is not kinda hepp.
  
• Its not kinda cool to hang around a theatre.
  
• Plays are not contemporary, themes are dated.
  
• I wanna watch plays , but no one throws them at me. How do I know one is on air?
  
• They tend to preach!! I don't wanna be preached.
  

Well, a lot of what is said above is true. I will not deny it. But for all these shortfalls as compared to a movie, plays have certain plus points too :)

• Good Plays contain a definite plot and a strong script, which is absent in most movies today ( I remember the exasperated firang hero in "Bollywood Calling" "Subra!!!! Where's is the script????" its not really different for most bollywood movies)
  
• Plays often have dated themes, but they depict the state of the social fabric very strongly at that point. It really opens ones eyes to the past, but yes, only if you care to take a peep into history.
  
• Plays are much closer to real life then the so called comedy movies ( people who have seen "Kya Cool Hain Hum" can comment better)
  
• Plays are shorter in duration and have fewer distractions ( like songs. Of course if your only objective of watching movies is to watch the item numbers, you are reading the wrong blog)
  
• Plays are much more economical to watch then a movie, atleast in Delhi.
  
• You almost always get to watch the play you intend to watch, you don't have to settle for a poor cousin cos there are not enough seats. Its never a housefull ( unless these themselves act as deterrents to your decision )
  

So, going with my belief, I have watched 8 plays in the past one year here in Delhi and will continue to watch them and post reviews. The reviews are not meant to be exact equivalents of a professional critique, but nor is this blog intended for professional actors and playwrights :)

This series of posts is meant to be a running commentary of reviews of plays or dramas that I have seen, keep seeing and will see in the future.