A comedy of errors
DIWAN SINGH BAJELI
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The director’s approach to “Here Lies the Point” turned a potential domestic comedy into a house of little mirth.
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Half-baked comedy A scene from “Here Lies the Point”.
Dhirendra Verma’s “Here Lies the Point” presented by RAS at the Shri Ram Centre this past week is a half-baked Hindi comedy play. Its main sources of humour are buffoonery and slapstick. The opening scene depicts the dream of a wif
e suspicious of her husband’s fidelity and its sets the tone of the play as a domestic comedy.
The playwright initially tries to make it a love triangle. A young girl stays with her married sister. The sister-in-law and brother-in-law appear to be romantically close . As a domestic comedy, the play should have been developed on this theme – a flirt husband, a young and beautiful sister-in-law and a quarrelsome and suspicious wife – to create comic situations. But the director and the playwright do not seem to be interested in comic characters and their development. The frequent use of dances to film tunes disturbs the comic rhythm. Director Gajraj Nagar’s aim appears to be to titillate the audience, rather than to offer good comedy.
Rhythm interrupted
There are about a dozen characters; their relations clumsily defined. Dhirendra Verma’s family is sketched in a nebulous manner. Most of the action takes place in Verma’s drawing room. He claims to be a senior officer. The way other characters invade his privacy without any reason transforms his room into a railway platform.
One such visitor is a character named Chaudhary Balraj Tanwar, who is accompanied by characters who hardly enhance the comic rhythm. Such characters are hardly seen in real life, and a comedy to be effective should project credible characters. One of the characters often visiting Verma is Jethmalani, who claims to be his neighbour. Initially he appears to be superficial, but he plays a decisive role in the climax. He exposes the thief in the garb of a priestand hands him over to the police inspector.
There is a sub-plot dealing with marital discord. The wife quarrels with her husband, a lousy police inspector, without reason. Structurally, the play is amorphous. The “point” is these flaws should be eradicated to make the play a comic expose of family life in cities. However, the production acquires pace and élan towards the end, conveying its message: it is ridiculous and self destructive to suspect the fidelity of one’s husband on baseless hearsay. Suresh Kumar as Dhirendra Verma, the hen-pecked husband and Nikhar as Verma’s wife act admirably. J.K Sharma as a harassed husband creates an effective portrait . Suryakant as Chaudhary Balraj Tanwar plays to the gallery.
Correction: The photo in the story “Playing with children’s theatre” published in Friday Review of July 6 was from the play “Bholle da Jhola” and not as mentioned. The play was greatly a
ppreciated.
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