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Mature theme dealt with ease
Paresh C. PalichaParesh C. Palicha
THE LAST time the city witnessed an English play was Rajat Kapur's, `Love Letters', which was a good five years ago. So a lot was expected from Mahesh Dattani's `Dance like a Man', which was staged in the city recently. And, though it did not rise to great heights, the play surely did leave an impression.
Lillette Dubey's production for Primetime Theatre, brought to the city in aid of Raksha, a society for the care of children with multiple handicaps, is a humorous play with complex undertones. It talks about an aging dancer couple, Jairaj Parekh and Ratna, who are on the verge of launching their daughter Lata's career in big time dancing. As the anxiety and stress of facing the big day increases, their tumultuous and somewhat dark past starts surfacing. The calm and funny exterior cracks, revealing the demons that they had swept under the carpet all these years.
Dattani has a reputation of being a playwright who attempts to hold a mirror to society. His plays bring to fore the absurdities and hypocrisies of the society. This play is in the same league. It questions the gender specific roles assigned to man and woman by a strait jacketed society. Tensions in a multi-ethnic nuclear family of contemporary India are lucidly portrayed.
`Dance Like a Man' is a play with many layers, which can work on various levels and can be seen from different perspectives. It is a comment on the changing society of pre-Independent India with its taboos and tradition.
Lillette Dubey, who has directed the play apart from donning the pivotal role, has treated the text in a very straightforward manner. Though dwelling on the complexities of the situations, she manages to keep the rich humour intact.
The cast of seasoned artistes like Lillette Dubey, Vijay Crishna (recently seen in the role of Shah Rukh Khan's father in `Devdas'), Suchitra Pillai, and Joy Sengupta (seen in numerous films and television serials, including Govind Nihalani's forthcoming film `Deham') gave the play its cutting edge.
Suchitra Pillai (Lata) and Joy Sengupta (Viswas), showed immense prowess, especially in the flashback sequences, where they double up as the younger versions of Ratna and Jairaj.
In fact, all the four characters double up as each other's younger or older version as the play moves to and fro between time and space.
The unsaid emotions are voiced subtly, like the jealousy Ratna feels at her daughter's success in her professional territory, Amritlal Parekh's (Jairaj's father played by Vijay Crishna) horror at the knowledge of his son's choice as a professional dancer and his relentless pressure at dissuading him from embarking on an effeminate career.
Supporting the physical and metaphorical implications of the actors' use of space was the fine lighting, sensitive music and aesthetic stage setting.
This is an English play, typically Indian, in everything, right from the sets, to the music (typical carnatic), down to witty one-liners, all in that typical Indian accent. Else it wouldn't be realistic.
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