Difficult play well-enacted

When Stella Maris College opted for `Hazaar Chaurashir Ma' they dared much. The students impressed one with a performance that rose above the banalities of a college production, writes ELIZABETH ROY.

TO AN average Stella Maris student today, the Naxalite movement is almost a fabulation from Indian history of the 1960s and 1970s. But for those of us who were teenagers or adults during those years, it is easy to relive the terror, confusion and the resultant uncertainties the movement struck. It remained a significant and inspiring event in this country for a number of decades. In political parlance it might have become somewhat of an anachronism, but all the factors that led to the movement remain unchanged and they continue to cause other eruptions.

``Once I became a professional writer (and activist), I felt increasingly that a writer should document her own time and history,'' said Mahasweta Devi who wrote ``Hazaar Churashir Ma'' in 1974 as a novel in Bangla. (Samik Bandyopadhyay's translation of the play is based on that.) In it she recreates this span of history, except she deflects the focus on to an upper middle class mother of the universal Naxalite, who is killed in an ``encounter''. In her own words her theme is ``an awakening of an apolitical mother. Mothers bearing the brunt of social and political oppression and enduring and resisting with indomitable will''.

Sujata is called to the police station to identify the corpse of her son Brati. She had never known nor can she understand that part of her son's life. Her society and family sympathise - ``How could Brati have done this?'' It takes her two years to piece together a part of her son's life she had never known, to find a moral rationale for his options and choices. She visits Somu's (one of the four comrades/friends who were killed together) house, a poor tenement where he found much happiness and a surrogate mother who shared with him the freedom her poverty gave her. Sujata meets Nandini, a fellow Naxalite who was in love with Brati. The three women despite their social, economic and ideological differences cope with the young man's loss. Mahasweta Devi sets this reality against the hollow laughter and clinking of glasses of alcohol at socialite evenings.

When Stella Maris College opted for ``Hazaar Churashir Ma'' (Mother of No. 1084), they dared much. Structurally it is not the best of plays. The ``hazaar'' monologues and asides and short scenes do not make for an easy production. A twenty-five strong cast can only make it worse. However, in the typical Stella Marian spirit and with backing from a generous and supportive management, the students turned their four weeks of rehearsal into a very successful play, which rose above the banalities of the usual college production, thanks also to a very good director in Sushma Ahuja.

Sushma's understanding and interpretation of the play were sound and rooted in her years of experience in Hindi theatre and television. With some basic rearrangement in the sequence of the scenes and introduction of Bangla into the dialogue she made the play extremely accessible and clarified contrasts by opening and ending the play with a typical elitist Calcutta party scene.

Mithran Devanesan's set design totally contained Sushma's understanding of the text. Devanesan divided the stage into three sections that were also mutually inclusive. A crude picket fence with a solid iron gate in the centre blocked off the upstage half. Further upstage was a platform rising above the gate and the barbed wire, signifying the police station, the prison, generally a platform for police atrocities, violent mobs and harsh hearts. The painted flag on top was lit in different hues to evoke the different moods. Downstage left was the Chatterjee home with two sparse chairs in black and red. In contrast, downstage right, in sparse deal-wood was Somu's poor house where Brati could come into his own. Grids in different designs circumscribed the two households. A festive wall hanging dropped down, curtaining off the prison whenever the party was on. The sets opened up the Museum Theatre stage. Clever use of spots highlighted monologues and the thoughts that were spoken aloud.

The audience would not have noticed any of this if the quality of acting had fallen short in any way. Particularly impressive were the mob scenes of violence and the inane social evenings. They were very effectively caricatured.

The rest of the play was carried forward by the three strong female roles - Sujatha (Sheetal Govindan), Somu's mother (Geetika Chandrahasan) and Nandini (Pratyusha Gupta). Sheetal's portrayal of the mother and the stirrings within her for a son were quite incredible. Pratyusha as the new generation, intellectual revolutionary, who manages to keep her emotions under control, was very impressive. Geetika put in a strong performance as Somu's mother and contrasted beautifully against both Sujata and Nandini. Some of the male roles well enacted were Somu (Remya Abraham) and Police Officer Saroj Pal (Aparna Ram). Incidentally this production gave me no opportunity to record yet again my usual complaint about women in male outfits. P. C. Ramakrishna who was at the play said to me, ``It was an excellent show. For the first time the girls in male costumes did not distract me at all''.

However, I do have two quarrels with the production. Sushma had a different Nandini (Natasha Jamal) and Sujatha (Anjali Ramachandran) for the second night. A bunch of amateur students fighting the constraints of time and experience are not ready for such professional experiments. It meant the lead roles got less of an opportunity to test new waters and refine their act, it put double the burden on the rest of the cast and the audience weren't sure they got the best deal. Curiosity had me at the Museum Theatre taking in both the shows. I must admit the performances were unequal.

The other quarrel I have is that Stella Maris opened the performance only to their friends and family and as a result denied the general theatre going public an opportunity to enjoy a difficult play very well done by a bunch of gutsy young women who will hopefully shape future direction.

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