MAALAIPOZHUDINILE ORU NAAL... A Play in Tamil by the Shanmukhananda Theatre Group...
May 11, 2012 12:00:00 AM IST MTG editorial
MAALAIPOZHUDINILE ORU NAAL is a Tamil adaptation of a 4th century Sanskrit play, supposedly written by Kavi Bodayanan. It is a satire. The story revolves around a Sadhguru who is a realised soul. His disciple is yet to relieve himself from the mundane life and there is a dancer who aspires to achieve greater heights in her career. The disciple falls in love with the dancer and when she meets a sudden end because of a snake bite, the disciple becomes grief stricken. Sadhguru decides to teach him a lesson by removing his athma (soul) from his body and putting it into the dancer's and tries to give advice to him. In the meantime, the yamaduth who had taken dancer's life away by mistake returns to give back the same and finds the dancer standing up hale and hearty. He puts the dancer's life into the body of Sadhguru which creates a crisis of identities. The dancer's mother, friend and the lover try to mend the situation by bringing in a medicine man and a tantric, who turn out to be hilarious flops. After much confusion the souls are interchanged and everything is sorted out.
The adaptation, dialogues and direction are by Mrs Santhosh Rajan, who is the Head of Shanmukhananda Theatre group. All those who are involved with the production are members of the Shanmukhananda Sabha and are amateurs. This is the group's 13th production.
The duration of the play is 2 hours fifteen minutes, with a ten minutes interval.
