Review

MOONFOOL

Direction : Sujay Saple
Cast : Arpit Singh, Dipna Daryanani, Himanshu Singh & Maithily Bhupatkar

MOONFOOL Play Review


Charulata



 MOONFOOL Review

Director Sujay Saple knows just how to play with the idea of a devised performance. With MOONFOOL, he is on slightly firmer ground than he was with UNSELFED, his previous venture. The abstract from UNSELFED, becomes much more concrete in MOONFOOL.



Performers Arpit Singh, Dipna Daryanani, Himanshu Singh and Maithily Bhupatkar take the audience through the many ideas influenced and inspired by the moon - love and loss, as expressed in poems, folk tales, myths, astronomy and science, as the director's note on the play tells us. From gibberish to dialogue to movement and sound, Saple uses every device available as the performance progresses.

The flow of ideas, from one segment to another, is seamless. That, of course, is the director's success. Yet, while Saple conquers the lack of coherence that pulled UNSELFED back from becoming a memorable contemporary performance, he is yet unable to refrain from indulgence. The director continues to push his audiences to sit through pieces (the performance is split into several pieces, exploring various ideas connected to the moon) that stretch too long. Too many times, a piece begins with promise, takes the audience through interesting moments but holds them at the moment too long, letting the appreciation evaporate. Had MOONFOOL been a crisper performance, its impact could be much stronger.

These shortcomings do not diminish the sincere effort that all the actors have put into their performance. They are a fantastic ensemble. It takes some energy to pull off an 80-odd-minute devised piece of theatre. They deserved the generous audience applause at the fifth edition of the NCPA Centrestage festival where the play premiered.

*Charulata enjoys watching theatre, and writing about it.

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