Pramey play review

PRAMEY, which premiered at the NCPA-AGP Centrestage Festival 2011, has been adapted from David Auburn's play PROOF and has been directed by Pritesh Sodha. The play takes place in an old house in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and it revolves around an eccentric Mathematician, Professor Pathak played by Kamlesh Mota and his daughter Gati, played by Sneha Desai. Gati is unable to accept that her father is no more; she feels his madness in everything that she does. Her sister Rekha, played by Shreya Bugde does not live with them but supports both of them and after their father's death has come to Ahmedabad to take her elder sister with her to Mumbai. Rekha also wants to sell off the old house as she fears that Gati might end up insane just like their father.

In walks a student named Sahil, played by Paresh Vora. Sahil is researching the work of Prof. Pathak, and is thoroughly confused as he does not find anything of value to him in the books written by the Mathematician. He learns from Gati that her father had been reduced to a depressive maniac with a crippled mind in the final days of his life. Gati and Sahil both come close to each other and things take a turn when Gati lends Sahil the key to a drawer where he finds the mathematical proof he is looking for. A proof on prime numbers, so advanced that the world has never seen. A profound drama of a father-daughter relationship thus emerges.

Performances from Kamlesh Mota, Sneha Desai and Shreya Bugde are heartwarming. Pritesh Sodha's direction and light design look wonderful. The music composed by Uday Mazumdar is beautiful and apt.

*Ami Trivedi is a well-known actor & producer. She has been active on the Gujarati stage for twenty-five years now.