A play within play

THEY CALL it `a play in a play'. The Madras IITians played it with a difference at Natak 2001, the inter-collegiate theatre festival.

The scriptwriter was on stage to send the director packing to the foreground. He grounded him as the play went on happily thereafter. He fast forwarded the act taking the audience with him to the very end. That a `script-writer' can engineer the finale to his liking and the way he wants it was amply exemplified.

A sedate beginning to the two-tier episode, with the director blowing the whistle and his top as well for an expressionless performance by the cast, gave way to murder, that even Homes would hesitate to call it `elementary my dear Watson'. The scriptwriter willed it and was on stage to state it. There were no clues for investigators to call it an `open-and-shut case'.

Few hypothetical references to reality could not have found a better platform as `bio-chemical reactions of grey cells' carried the day forward. The story was by Sriram Subramanian and Mihir Mysore, who also directed it along with Mithun Sundar. The script - Ajit Q. Narayan.

The day, however, began with MOP Vaishnav girls calling the shots. An adaption of Poile Sen Gupta's `Mangalam' offered an over-dramatised version of women abuse in a typical South Indian household, traumatised by molesting a woman by her sister's husband. The cast's pronounced Chennai drawl provided the flavour, propped the presentation to mould and portray a conservative environment.

The mechanics of poverty and the ills that drown families in sorrow found place for portrayal - a probable off- shoot of the central theme.

Directed by Prarthana Mohan, the second part attempted to capture a more urban setting, where abuse is not uncommon. It depicts an honest attempt to reflect the pain, tears and fatigue that every woman feels at some point of time in her life. The director touch was apparent with a cautious query: is safety of women within four walls of a place called home an illusion?

By S. Shanker

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Section  : Entertainment