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The will to serve
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Human relationships and the family unit are at the heart of Mahesh Dattani's play `Where There's A Will' which will be presented on July 20 by the Rotary club of Meenambakkam.
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OVER THE last six plays Mahesh Dattani and Chennai have been bonding rather comfortably, most of the time with Mithran Devanesen mediating. Equations will remain unchanged for a seventh time at the Music Academy on the July 20, when the Rotary Club of Meenambakkam will present Mahesh Dattani's `Where There's A Will', designed and directed by Mithran Devanesen.
The play is a signal production, in the sense that it is Dattani's first ever (1988) play. We get a glimpse of the envelope before it began to get pushed. We encounter a play written in freedom from a playwright who had no expectations to be lived up to, who did not carry the baggage of celebrity status.
`Where There's A Will' is a delightful play, heavily under-layered with humour. The promise of a will and inheritance holds together a business tycoon and his family, and his mistress. After his death, again, it is the will, crafted with chicanery, which holds the family together with the mistress at the helm, the splendidly comic presence of the dead father leavening the play.
Human relationships and the family unit are at the heart of the dramatic representation. Dattani suggests to his audiences different ways of giving meaning to spaces (for example, the dead father clarifies his and the audiences' perception of the world, hanging upside down!) Contemporary audiences recognise the magic of individuations. You chuckle through as the play takes a look at the Indian middle class morality, the ensuing parody and the commercial bent.
For the production Devanesen has also brought together some of Chennai's never-can-fail actors. Sudhir Ahuja, who has thrilled Chennai audiences time and time again in the past, plays the father, not to mention the dead one too. His interaction with the audience, particularly after his death, is most enjoyable. Kaveri Lalchand and Karthik Srinivasan are two seasoned, proven and familiar stage artistes. Bringing in young breath are Sheethal Govindan and Swetha Ravishankar who had swept the stage during Natak. Sheethal did it again in the Stella Maris College production, Hazar Churashir Ma.
It then is not all that surprising that the Rotary Club of Meenambakkam invited Devanesen and his group, without the usual safety net of corporate sponsorship, to help raise funds for their project helping people with Hansen's disease in a village they have adopted. This kind of symbiosis is quite new in Chennai; to raise funds we often bank on the glitter of groups from other metros, in the process spending a lot to make a little! This opportunity has given local theatre, in particular English theatre, a much-deserved fillip and a way to get involved in and contribute to our community's own developmental activities. The rest is left to the audiences to do their bit and to show the way in the context of our times. Tickets are available at Landmark, Rex Fashions and Odyssey.
ELIZABETH ROY
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