The Script           
The Script, February 2007. Issue 2.

Dear Drama lover,

Hello again! February sees a flurry of events with the final leg of Writer's Bloc 2, the Yatri Theatre Festival and a Festival of Poetry reading and plays to be show cased at Prithvi.

On the QTP front we are laying back after hectic but successful shows of Khatijabai and also our two new productions, The President is Coming and Crab at the Writer's Bloc 2 festival. The process of making Thespo a year long event is underway in association with Prithvi Theatre and we hope to begin with it in March. Also Q and Toral are off once again to Pondicherry, London and Stratford for A Midsummer Night's Dream, so we wish them all the very best and will miss them dearly. 

Other than all the exciting events in February, in this month's edition of The Script is festive with  Scherazade Kaikobad reviewing a selection of Writer's Bloc 2 and Rati Tripathi shares her experience on attending the NSD Festival 2007 held in Delhi.

And not to forget, our monthly Great Texts reading is in the last week of February. Look forward to seeing you there.

Happy reading.

Yours Sincerely,
On Behalf of Q Theatre Productions,

Himanshu.
Editor, The Script.

Quick Links:
Corno-Q-pia:  Great Texts, Khatijabai, The President is Coming & Crab.
Point of View:  Scherazade Kaikobad reviews Writer's Bloc 2 (Part 1).
4 Corners: Rati Tripathi shares her experience of the NSD Festival 2007.
Up & Coming:  All the exciting plays happening in the city!
Great Stuff:  Auditions and much much more!
Curtain Call:  Rod Serling on the minds of Writers!

Corno-Q-pia
The horn of plenty of QTP events and happenings.

QL

Point of View:  
This month Scherazade Kaikobad reviews some of the plays shown at Writers Bloc 2. The views expressed in this article are those of the author. You are welcome to agree, disagree or comment by emailing us at qtp@vsnl.com.

DIGGING THROUGH WRITERS’ BLOC 2

 One of the plays at Writers’ Bloc 2, called EXCAVATORS, employed the metaphor of ‘digging’, a singularly apt metaphor for much of the writing staged at this festival devoted to original playwriting. For that’s what the playwrights were doing – digging around in narrow little holes, some of them delving deeper while others just flailed about. It put one in mind of Jane Austen’s little piece of ivory which she claimed was the best thing to work on, though one did wish that they had displayed some of her intricate craftsmanship as well. But not only was the scope of the playwrights’ canvas confined, surprisingly most of them were digging down a similar hole as well – that of inter-personal relationships.

 First-time playwright Maia Katrak’s EPILOGUE went digging into the confused relationships of a Parsi family. Hearty old Rustom (Sohrab Ardeshir) has just died, leaving behind a grieving widowed Freny (Shernaz Patel) who is on her way to becoming a sour old battle-axe, his crusty pregnant daughter Meher (Meher Acharia-Dar) who is haunted by the spectre of a previous miscarriage, and a ‘ghar-jamai’ son-in-law Freddy (Nadir Khan) who isn’t sure how to handle either of the two women. Being the only link that held the family together, Rustom’s spirit is granted a grace period (within the four days that it is traditionally believed to take a Parsi soul to reach heaven) to set things right between the folks left behind. So he is shuttled between the two worlds, escorted by two dead army veterans (Mukul Chadda and Neil Bhoopalam) who are drawn as stock comic characters and, being succours for a good tale, goad the characters into divulging more. The strength of this play lay in the love-hate relationships between the characters, beautifully carried off by the actors who played off one another very well, and in the balance struck between moments of tension and moments of humour allowed for by the script, and also in the simple but interesting set and light designs. The characters, while entirely believable and identifiably Parsi, were however, just marginally saved from appearing one-dimensional and stereotypical and one did wish they had been fleshed out a little more, especially Freny and Rustom. Rajit Kapur’s direction, while not earth shattering, was nonetheless competent, specifically his handling of the constant transitions between the two worlds with some skilful blocking. However, it was not enough to cover the fact that the script itself refused to dig into how the equations of the relationships would change if the interaction is between the world of the living and the dead. For all practical purposes, the world of the dead was merely a device used to enter the world of the living, rather than a fully explored terrain in itself.

 Irawati Karnik’s Marathi play AALTOON PAALTOON confined itself to digging down an even narrower hole, based on a strange relationship struck up by two complete strangers who spend a rainy night together at a costume shop. Both Niranjan (Subodh Khanolkar), 23, and Rama (Leena Bhagwat), close on 50, had run away from their respective homes. At the back of their relationship (which ran the whole gamut from an initial apprehension of each other, to winding up sleeping with each other) lay something from each one’s past which hung like a sword over and determined their relationship – an abusive father for him, and a brazenly unfaithful husband for her. Unfortunately, the script, in an attempt at realism, while according primacy to these two sub-stories, chose to treat all the other topics that the two characters fleetingly touched on as merely the subsidiary and the relatively insignificant conversation of two people who meet as strangers. While the design of the play and Adwait Dadarkar’s direction were largely unimaginative, the acting salvaged the play to a great extent, even though Rama did appear to be half the age she was supposed to be and did not bring the maturity of an older woman to the relationship. If one managed to overlook this, though, there was a curiously endearing temerity and immaturity with which both characters approached the relationship, sometimes even relapsing into a bit of childishness.

 In Manjima Chatterjee’s THE EDGE, the plot of the killing of a suspected terrorist by a woman who mistook him for her ex-lover proved to be a thinly veiled excuse for the playwright to go digging into the relationship between a woman and her husband, and to explore the depths of ‘normalcy’ and violent ‘insanity’. With a curious mixture of narrative monologues and regular dialogue, the production did take a while to draw the audience into the particular hell-hole that is Rimi Mazumdar’s (Ratnabali Bhattacharjee) reality, possibly owing to the director’s (Akarsh Khurana) decision to underplay everything. But if this made the production seem flat at times, it also did allow for some exceedingly poignant moments to emerge – especially in the latter scenes between Rimi and her husband – ultimately getting under the audience’s skin. Complemented by an aesthetic and extremely evocative set and light design, the fractures in the representational Marble Palace which were carried forward onto the floor of the stage spoke in the same sparse language used by the characters. The blocking, though, was a bit haphazard and could have done with some rethinking, as well as the transitions from monologue to dialogue.

One play at the festival that went digging down several wrong holes and ultimately abandoned them halfway was Ajay Krishnan’s EXCAVATORS, the play which, ironically, employed the metaphor of digging but didn’t exploit half its potential. Starting out as a play within a play, EXCAVATORS presented a man digging a hole for some unfathomable reason while besieged by a stream of people including a reluctantly pregnant woman, a local politician and a blind pilgrim. While the quality of the writing itself was good, the plot unfortunately lacked purpose, coherence and a direction. The production was salvaged to some extent by the actors who made the most of a sticky situation, and by a liberal dose of wisecracks and witticisms.

One of the most refreshing and beautifully handled plays to come out of the festival was Swar Thounaojam’s TUREL. Although based once again on the premise of relationships, digging would be the wrong metaphor to employ for this production that suggested the delicacy of weaving instead. Set on the banks of the river Nambul Turel against the backdrop of insurgency in Manipur, the play wove the pattern of an unusual friendship between the lonely old widowed Brahmin Eigya who had just buried his baby grandchild on the riverbank, and the much younger Luwangcha who was born a female but later chose to become a male, and was subsequently raped by soldiers from the Indian army. The play’s appeal lay in several things – the fact that it was firmly grounded in a socio-political context, and while the personal was informed by the political, it still remained a play about the personal rather than the political; the extremely sensitive and nuanced handling of the script both by the director (Sunil Shanbag) and the actors (especially Kumud Mishra as Luwangcha, who was well supported by Nagesh Bhosle as Eigya), the style of understatement and subtlety adopted throughout the production; moments of extreme stillness with palpable undercurrents of tension running through; the riverbank (very well recreated on the stage) that served not only as the setting, but became a tangible presence in itself. The play, however, was not without its drawbacks, most noticeably the stepchild treatment given to the subsidiary characters by the script which lavished all its attention only on the two main characters.

To be continued in the next issue.

Scherazade Kaikobad
scherazade@rediffmail.com

QL

4 Corners:
Rati Tripathi gives us a report on the NSD Fest 2007

 NSD FESTIVAL 2007

The 9^th edition of the annual festival of the National School of Drama Theatre Utsav, formerly known as Bharat Rang Mahotasav, was recently held at five venues around the Mandi House roundabout in Delhi.  The fortnight long schedule featured 39 Indian productions and 13 shows from Australia, Poland, Switzerland, Iran, Nepal, Bangladesh, South Korea, China, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan.  The festival focused on dual themes this year, “Classics revisited” and “Dance-Theatre”.  The international festival opened with an experimental dance performance titled “No Body” by Sasha Waltz from Germany on 6^th January and an award ceremony honoring noted theatre personalities Prasanna and Kewal Dhariwal.  The festival also paid tribute to two directors participating in the festival this year, Narendar Sharma and Alyque Padamsee for their lifelong contribution to theatre. 

 So I read in the Saturday papers when I arrived at Delhi six days after the festival opened. I had decided to go on one of my typical ‘combo’ trips – work, holiday, theatre and short film festivals.  On this trip, I think I finally managed to achieve the ideal split of my free time between family and friends.  Of course my parents hold a different view seeing as most of our quality time together was spent in the car late every night picking me up from the NSD festival.

 “Toh, aaj ka play kaisa tha?”

 Hath-i-Handol

Director: Rashie Rashid
Production Company: Azad Dramatic Cultural Club
Language: Kashmiri
Country: India (Srinagar)
Hath-i-Handol is an adaptation of Italian playwright Dario Fo’s “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” (1970). The play is a sharp satire on police corruption. The police deny responsibility for the death of an activist in their custody and claim he committed suicide by jumping out the window.  A presiding judge rules the death was accidental. A mad man infiltrates the police headquarters by impersonating a police officer and a judge and gets the police to contradict themselves and expose the cover-up.
Since I don’t understand Kashmiri and didn’t have an English translation in hand, it was hard for me to appreciate the ethnic Kashmiri songs or other local references.  I mostly watched the actors’ faces and movements.  The most junior police constable caught the audience’s attention with his body language in every scene.  Overall, I found it a smooth if rather colorless ensemble performance.

Golapjan

Director: SM Solaiman
Production Company: Theatre Art Unit
Language: Bengali
Country: Bangladesh (Dhaka)
The play was first performed in 1995 and has been going strong despite the director’s death in 2001.  The play is a memoir of the livelihoods and ways of old Dhaka city in the mid 20^th century telling the story of one ordinary woman named Golapjan.  A singing and dancing chorus is on stage all the time but easily blends into the background dressed in the same colors as the set.  They come forward at regular intervals to take the story along with songs from popular Hindi films, reflecting Golapjan’s emotions at various stages of her life.  We witness the carefree days of her childhood spent playing with her beloved horse.  We smile as a young and nervous Golapjan doesn’t stop talking through the awkward first moments of her wedding night.  We watch her young son take a fatal fall during the kite flying festival and her husband lose a leg in a road accident making Golapjan the sole breadwinner of the family.  The lead actress was a bundle of energy and a joy to watch for 1 hour and 14 minutes. 

 Rural Phantasy

Director: Gowri Ramnarayan
Production Company: Just Us Repertory
Language: English
Country: India (Chennai)
This play is based on a short story by the great Tamil literary figure, Kalki Krishnamurthy, about women’s emancipation and the role of educated Indian women in India’s freedom movement.  Two narrators, three live Carnatic musicians and light group dance sequences make up most of the 1 hour and 40 minutes but in the end all three devices struck me as utterly superfluous.  The story is set in Kanayadi of 1930s, a small pretty village in Tanjavore district.  The simple village folk, both men and women, are loyal to the British regime and traditional social conduct pertaining to caste and gender.  An educated young woman, a daughter of the village, steps off the train from Calcutta and brings with her new thoughts, stirring words and unorthodox behavior.  Kalki’s tale is sincere, unfussy and charming.  Unfortunately it doesn’t start until the forty first minute of the show.  The auditorium shrank from its full capacity of three hundred to fifty odd people who stayed until the end to watch a caricaturized dramatization marred by more than a handful of goof ups.

 Life Cord

Director: Oh Tae Suk
Production Company: National Drama Company
Language: Korean with English subtitles
Country: South Korea
Life Cord is a tale of political intrigue and a saga of treachery in the royal court. The production was marked by brilliant direction and flawless acting, glorious costumes and many stunning visuals. 1. All male members of royal family are brought into the court hooded and dressed in white robes. They are assassinated one by one but drop dead simultaneously.  2. A servant woman whose husband has just struck a deal to sacrifice their son in order save the royal bloodline is wailing incessantly and trying to pick up her infant with her teeth because her hands are tied on a stick behind her back bearing buckets of water.  3. A princess giving birth to the last royal heir is illustrated with a red sheet over her legs wide open. The servant woman’s husband switches babies, giving her a black pillow and taking away the blood red newborn.  Moments later, the princess kills herself and the baby.  4. The servant woman has gone mad with grief. She searches for her baby in dirty and tattered clothes, her milk laden breasts bouncing out of her torn blouse.

 Tu

Director: Mohit Takalkar
Production Company: Aasakta in association with Just So Creations
Language: Marathi
Country: India (Pune)
Written by Satee, this play grew out of a process that lasted four months with the playwright, the director and the company.  The result is a beautiful manifestation in a series of abstract episodes using Rumi’s poetry for dialogue.  Of course I would have liked this “journey of words” even more if I understood Marathi.

 Acheekpagi Khongjel

Director: L Kishworjit Singh
Production Company: Paradise Theatre.
Language: Manipuri
Country: India (Imphal)
Based on David Henry Hwang’s “The Sound of a Voice” (1998), this experimental play explores hidden sensual feelings of man and woman in traditional society and upholds the need to create a new understanding between man and woman.  [Reviewer Comment: I’ll vote for that - story of my life. But if we understood the opposite sex, what would we all talk about?]  I liked the seamless use of a video projection to depict the erotic dreams of ‘man’ as he slept centre-stage.  Another highlight of the play was one delightfully surreal visual.  To simulate intercourse, as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ gesture towards each other, four women walk onto stage, lie down and energetically bounce a half life size nude male cloth doll on their calves and knees.  [Reviewer Comment the sequel: Actually I think we operate in a world of asymmetrical, sometimes flawed but nearly always imperfect information and in human relations, that’s mostly by choice. I think we like not knowing for sure, not understanding for sure. Ambiguity is thrilling. Does s/he like me or like-like me? I don’t know.]

 Final Draft

Director: Girish Joshi
Production Company: Maharashtra Cultural Centre
Language: Marathi
Country: India (Pune)
The playwright-director drew upon his own teaching experiences to write this wonderful rich story about a professor who teaches scriptwriting at a media and communications institute in Bombay and his student.  The entire play is a series of conversations and tutorial lessons at the professor’s house.  Each character has to come to terms with their respective frustrations, drawbacks and despair.  The expertise of both actors shone through their faultless performances.  I only understood 2% of the realistic and funny dialogues but I could tell it was an excellent play from the reactions of a Marathi speaking friend seated next to me who snickered, giggled and laughed through the 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

Poshak

Director: Tripurari Sharma
Production Company: NSD Repertory Company
Country: India (Delhi)
Poshak is a play about the struggle of the clad identity with the creative restless self.  It is written and performed like an average Bollywood film with plenty of singing and dancing and make up and crowd scenes and hamming all around.  I did not care for it.

 Chokh Gyalo

Director: Guatam Halder
Production Company: Nandikar
Language: Bengali
Country: India (Kolkata)
I really liked the fade in lighting that opened the play.  It took about a minute and a half for the audience to clearly see the sitting figure of a woman.  Lighting, wind and clever variations in the texture of a white background sheet simulated changes in scenery, time, and weather.  Chokh Gyalo is the tale of a poor old woman, once married, now branded a witch and abandoned by all. She talks to herself, looks at pictures, cherishes memories, reenacts them, and has humorous speech mannerisms. She longs for a grandson, a family member, anyone she can love and care for.

 Parati Parikatha

Director: Sanjay Upadhyay
Production Company: Nirman Kala Manch
Language: Bhojpuri & Hindi
Country: India (Patna)
Parati Parikatha is a story of a village, a zamindar, a dam and a romance.  It is a lovely street play and it was performed with honesty and sincerity. But it didn’t quite work on stage despite the encouraging whistles, guffaws and claps from the balcony area.

 Vikramorvasheeyam

Director: G Venu
Production Company: Natanakairali
Language: Sanskrit
Country: India (Trichur)
This two and a half hour performance is an exploration of Kalidasa’s plays through Kutiyattam.  This was the first Kutiyattam performance I had ever seen and I thought it was lovely, especially the second act during which the female performer enacts falling in love.

Kursiya

Director: Atul Kumar
Production Company: The Company Theatre, Bombay
Language: Hindi
Country: India (Mumbai)
I don’t know if it was the actors or just this performance or what. Half the audience got up for an ovation but this take on Eugene Ionesco’s “The Chairs” (1952) did not work for me.

 In the end, Theatre Utsav easily held its position as the highlight of my ‘combo’ trip.  I saw myself in some characters.  Some themes touched my mood and evoked strong reactions.  Some scenes touched latent thoughts and evoked strong reactions.  I took mental notes whenever I did or didn’t like something, whenever I did or didn’t understand something.  I decided I should move to Mumbai and learn Marathi.  Or move to Seoul and learn Korean.  I requested Hindi or English translations of scripts.  I sat in the front row so that my colleagues on stage would see a friendly face amidst the stern Delhi audience.  I went backstage to hug them.  I kept my three sweaters, coat, woolen cap and gloves on inside the halls at all times.  Thinking back, it does strike me that most of the plays I liked were performed at Kamani Auditorium, the only hall with a central heating system.  Mere happenstance, I assure you.  Nevertheless, I think I’ll check out Kala Ghoda in Mumbai next year.

Rati Tripathi is a theatre enthusiast and a microfinance researcher.

QL

Up&Coming:
The following is a list of shows you should watch out for this month. The code to it's deciphering is as follows:
red is the Theatre Club show 
and in blue are QTP events. 
Those with an (R) next to them means that we have reviewed it, and if you require a review simply email us at qtp@vsnl.com asking for it. 
Those with an (PP) next to them means that it is a platform performance, entry free!