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Theatre of Music or Muzak?
A Snapshot Review of the Prithvi Festival 07'.
Of the eleven Musicals presented at this year's Prithvi Festival, I was able to see eight. Earlier, I had already had an opportunity to see Awishkar�s production of GIRIBALA, which was also part of this festival. Its review appears separately on this site. This Mumbai centric festival, which celebrated its press preview with a booming, high note- complete in sync with the festival's theme, fizzled out on the expectations it had raised. The crescendo never reached its peak as the tune mumbled, rumbled and jumbled. Along the way some voices sparkled but for the larger part the range was mediocre to simply boring.
The Top Three
ME GRAND DAD 'AD AN ELEPHANT
This erstwhile theatrical reading based on Vaikom Mohammad Basheer's eponymous novella of 1951 finds a musical idiom under Digvijay Savant's direction. At the heart of the story is Kunjupatthuma (Ahlam Khan), a young, naive girl brought up in a conservative, Malyali-Muslim family. The story while being essentially simple is relevant for our times even today. Basheer's humanist vision gently debunks orthodox, supertitious and bougeoise mores in favour of a moderate and progressive Islam.
Savant makes good use of the performance space and parts of the narrative are transformed into verse that is set to the rhythm of live but minamilist music. The lyrics, which are largely based on the narrative, work in bits and parts however. Lack of clarity in speech is another impediment. Nevertheless an endearing, theatrical element awaits you at the end of the play. A surprise not to be revealed!
JAZZ
In recent times Ramu Ramanathan has emerged as the theatre badshah of forgotton stories of Mumbai. Like 3 SAKINA MANZIL and COTTON 56, POLYESTER 84, his JAZZ reveberates with sounds that are either forgotton or marginalized. The play is a fitting tribute to the swinging blues and jazz era of Bombay; a nostalgic and a romantic metaphor for a city caught under the debris that has become Mumbai.
Etienne Coutinho's simple and straightforward direction combines the narrative with live saxaphone music. But it's simply not enough. For all its good intent in terms of a clever and effective light design and background projection, it fails to create a resonant ambience. The words are there but the production as a whole is not atmospheric enough. In the end it is the text that delivers. Its pithy humour succeeds in giving a touch to this funerary tale of a heady, Musical past that was consumed by the cash registers of Bollywood.
MASTANA RAMPURI URF CHAPPAN CHURI
Inspired by John Gay's The Beggars' Opera, Bertolt Brecht's The Three Penny Opera and Vaclav Havel's version of the same, Chetan Datar's adaptation and Sunil Shanbag's direction takes its cue from the gangster films of Bollywood. The influence is sharp and unmistakable. With its lexicon of the gulli, narrative and dialogue are interspersed with a smattering of songs that strive to give a socialist underpinning to the larger context in which the play unfolds. Some of the songs such as the title song, the mother's song for her daughter and the prostitute's song in particular are reflective of a Brechtian sensibility.
The greater problem however is that the action overwhelms the context. Any reference to a 1960's India, disillusioned by Nehruvian ideals is lost in the boom boom shoot shoot plot that is not any different from the popular film versions of gangster rivalries and encounter killings. The production has a style; it�s an entertainer with some really good performances but on the whole it is just not as intellectually demanding as it could be.
The Bottom Three
BABUJI (Tale of a Showman)
This Humlog theatre production, adapted by Vibhanshu Vaibhav from an original story by Mithileshwar, is typical of all the clich�s and stereotypes that can reduce a subject-in this case, a performer�s saga to melodrama. Set in a North Indian village, the play�s central character, Babuji (Abner) is depicted as a victim; a misunderstood artiste who finds solace in his drink and his small, touring company.
If it succeeds at all, it is on account of its protagonist, actor-singer, who is accompanied by a female member from his troupe. Both are good. But it is only in the Musical element of the play that one gets to appreciate, if at all, the Nautanki style of theatre. On the whole its shoddy realism doesn�t do much for the folk theatre form, which it wishes to greatly extol.
TUKRA'S DREAM
What can you say about a play in which you can barely hear what�s going on? And it can only get worse if that play has a satirical quality to it. To begin with, quite a few members of the cast, talented as they may be, need to badly register for a voice/speech workshop. Dr. Ranade- you could have used the Prithvi Fest 6:00 pm show of this play as a case study for your workshops on voice and speech.
So after much straining and shuffling the verdict from this theatre website is that the play, directed by Jaimini Pathak has its moments; its set design is appropriate and flexible but there are too many disparate elements to appreciate the tragicomic nature of the play. One never does quite get to empathize with the outcast Tukra of Chandrashekhar Kambar�s original, Kannada play, who introduces himself as �I am the thousand years dream of this earth, or I am the pain suffered by this earth in its dream, or I am the wound of this earth.�
GIRIJA KE SAPNE
Confirmation that IPTA Mumbai has lost its plot comes in the form of GIRIJA KE SAPNE, an altogether simplistic and facetitous take on globalization and the issue of farmers driven to suicide.
Need I spell out the theme? Girija�s dream, triggered off by Sharukh Khan�s sculpted body is about getting rich. To that end she drives her simpleton husband Raju to borrow money on credit, which he is unable to return. Result: Suicide. Moral of the story: See see-globalization and all this credit business has not even spared the poor, hardworking farmers. We are of course spared of the realistic ordeal in a satire styled format, which needless to say is self-defeating. Well-meaning IPTA Mumbai desperately needs to get out of the fabled village/city trap, and be more rigorous in its research and approach. Its socialist and progressive ideology needs to be more suitably redefined for our times today.
The Mediocre & The Boring
AISA KEHTE HAIN
In spite of a competent ensemble of actors and some who double up as good singers too, Manav Kaul's latest experiment in the 'stream of consciousness' mode is unable to raise expectations as his debut SHAKKAR KE PAACH DAANE or later as PEELE SCOOTERWALA AADMI did. It is way too indulgent this time in its philosophical mumbo-jumbo of a writer's inner jouney and of stories taking on a life of their own.
In the end all you are left with are some glittering lines and some whimsical but innovative lyrics. You think: 'Well, at least it's not boring!'
JAAGINE JOUN TO
Written by Sitanshu Yashashchandra, this debut play by veteran Gujarati actor Utkarsh Mazumdar's theatre company Sarvanaam is sublimely boring. The play's theme, which revolves around the famous Gujarati, saint-poet Narsinh Mehta's devotion for Lord Krishna, is too self-evident.
So in spite of Utkarsh bhai's stirring voice, which is accompanied by two other singers, who double up as narrators and characters, all you can do is to sit back and be a passive listener to this part historic and part mythologized story. Of course if you know the lyrical compositions, some of which are resonant of an antediluvian dandiya rass, you can happily join in as did the majority of the old and middle-aged Gujaratis in the audience.
*The writer is Editor of this site, a theatre critic and an academic keenly interested in Theatre and Performance Studies.
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