Egypt, with local flavour

``Cleopatra'' was a sponsor's dream, an event that made Chennai proud and happy. ELIZABETH ROY writes...

``CLEOPATRA'' STOOD out for its balance, its humour and its technical perfection. The annual Pantomime, which began ten years ago in the quadrangle of the British Council, came full circle last week, its indigenisation complete. It played to seven overwhelmingly full houses. Obviously the time was right for change. The audience responded with the same sort of excitement the first Pantomime generated.

Aysha Rau set the change in motion scripting away from the traditional ``based on a well-known fairy story.'' Her skeleton script dealt with a situation in an Egyptian palace in the days when Caesar ruled with Cleopatra - the Princess of Ethiopia was rather keen to marry young Ptolemy (to get away from the famine and the absence of flowers in her country). Caesar did not see ``the great unification'' as politically wise. A civil war of sorts breaks out. A ``hypnotised'' Caesar joins the ``baddies of Egypt'' (which includes the high priests who should have been officiating at the wedding). Mrs. Mop, the palace cleaning woman, comes to the Queen's help. She gets in touch with her old friend in Chennai, Salami Swami. He travels the seven seas with his two Swaminis to Alexandria to perform the ceremony. A great war (shades of Kurukshetra) ensues. Good triumphs. The high priests of Egypt pranam Salami Swami, become his assistants and are given permission to set up units in Chetpet, Saidapet and Chintadripet. There is peace and happiness and Christmas cheer incidentally.

``Cleopatra'' is Yog Japee's first venture into direction (in fact he has been into theatre for only two years). The result was an absolute runaway success. When asked how and why he had changed the basic character of the Panto, he looked rather nonplussed, ``I don't understand this business of 'different'. I did not see any of the previous Pantos. I did not have any sort of benchmark to fall back on. My concept of Panto was that the entire process should be a whole lot of fun. I only had to contemporise the story line given to me and blend into it a strong of local flavour''.

With ``Cleopatra'', Yog achieved an impressive degree of professionalism. A series of workshops helped the cast to internalise the text as well as the act. Consequently they were empowered and equipped to improvise when the situation called for it. In fact, without batting an eyelid they transcribed an entire show into Tamil. The performance for the Corporation Schools went down like a bomb. The cast was thrilled with the opportunity. Amazingly the level of confidence and competence ran right across the cast with an age range of five to fifty.

Meticulous

Yog's production design was meticulous. ``My focus was theatre per se right from the beginning. Every other component revolved around it, lifting the production.'' Music, sets, costumes, choreography and colour were anchored into place and in a fine balance, one component enhancing and embellishing the other and in turn the final show.

The costumes from Megan Utley were wonderful, her last for Chennai perhaps, but the best yet. Her flowers and butterflies and insects and, in particular, her gorgeous donkey will be remembered for long. Her colours and designs were a seamless and beautiful extension to Hans Kaushik's sets design, which picked up its cue from the script, ``Egypt is all about triangles''. The set of pyramids stretched into the back creating depth and perspective. One could almost see the vast stretches of sand and the sea beyond against the lush palace, thanks to good lights from Pasupathy.

Outstanding music

Special mention must also be made of Anil Srinivasan's music and the dances choreographed by Jeffrey Vardon. Quantitatively speaking there was perhaps less of both this year but they stood out more powerfully, very strikingly nudging the audience to focus on the point of the performance. Back-up vocals were of excellent quality.

An audience feels honoured to sit before a cast, 70 strong, when every single one of them has put his or her best foot forward. Some among them impacted more because of years of experience and the challenge of the roles. R. Sundar's Cleopatra-cum-Dame was so well done and so much in character that one tended to forget that it was a man in the Cleo outfit. Some of the other major characters well done were Raghu's high-priest, Ptolemy by Sidhi Japee, Princess Laila by Aparna Gopinath, Paul Mathew's Caesar.

It was a delightful surprise to have Salami Swami (Vidyuth Srinivasan) with his Swaminis taking over the latter half of the show. He was superb, his best performance yet. Kudos to Yog for the humour that lifted the play onto an enchanting plane, as also for his stage choreography and compositions. There was perfect balance and an intriguing asymmetry all the time. The production had carefully chosen motifs in terms of design and gestures, which stringed the various parts into a whole.

``Cleopatra'' was a sponsor's dream, an event that made Chennai proud and happy. Yog explains the success of his production, ``It was simply putting together the various strengths that already were there in the actors and the crew... They put in very hard work and allowed me to push them further and further. I realised that Pantomime gives you the freedom to get away with anything on stage. The trick, however, is to use (and not misuse) that freedom to your advantage.'' An exhausted but elated producer, Aysha Rau added, ``I have never worked harder for anyone else!''

To Little Theatre's credit they have brought to Chennai Pantomime, as if it had evolved right here. It was a Herculean job well done and an assurance that theatre in Chennai will not have to go down in a whimper.

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