KALAPI: An ABRIDGEMENT OF PASSION, POETRY, PERFIDY & POISON
It is no mean task to select excerpts from a play which if done in its original form would easily run into many long hours. Although Sheela Butala of Shivam Creations can be credited for having done so for her play, KALAPI, she runs the risk of being a little too simplistic in her choice of those excerpts.
As a result, we not only get an edited perspective of Kalapi’s life but also a strictly limited one. However, given attention spans that are akin to the two-minute recepie of Maggi Noodles, Butala’s dramatic endeavour works.
For starters, sincere attempts have been made to recreate the life and times of Kalapi through the use of an appropriate set and costumes. Art director Chhel Paresh creates an ambience that is pleasing to the eye. It also bears testimony to the efforts that have been undertaken to understand the play’s subject from a socio-historical point of view.
The life of Kalapi, a nineteenth century poet cum prince regent of a small kingdom in the then princely state of Saurashtra, India has been apparently well documented by Dr. Dhanwant Shah in the original play titled “Rajvi Kavi Kalapi”. This play appears in the form of a book with other details of the poet’s life, including pictures.
Thus having selected the choiciest excerpts from this book, Sheela Butala and her team bring to their largely Gujarati audience, a slice of Gujarati literature. This is indeed no small feat given the inane stuff of most others plays in the same language. And yet, the play falls below expectations despite the merit of its subject.
On a level, it works very well given the poetry of Kalapi which is set to the fine rhythms of music by Suresh Joshi. Again, Mehul Buch’s direction respects the musical quality of this production enough to let it fluidly gel with the spoken word.
On the other hand, the characterization of Kalapi is overtly romanticized. He is continuously shown as a victim of political intrigue and jealousy. We hence only get a one-dimensional view of a man who it seems was also extremely well-read and had produced a copious amount of literature in his lifetime.
Not that these facets of his personality do not figure in the play but they largely are summarized in a recorded narrative, another device that the play makes use of. Gujarati audiences love the metaphysical poetry that is interspersed with the dramatic visual of Kalapi’s life but the visual itself is reduced to the story of a man caught up with three women, one of them poisoning him ultimately.
Performances are a tad melodramatic but thankfully, the quality of restraint is understood by all the actors in the cast. Problems with characterization abound. Even the women in Kalapi’s life are cast as either being jealous, scheming, weepy or infatuated.
There are no shades, no counter-viewpoints that the play has to offer. For instance, the character of Anandiba, Kalapi’s second wife is rendered mute. Whether this is true of the original or not is another issue but in the play, it still stands out as one of those glaring repercussions of a one-sided story.
In short, the drama of Kalapi although immature is paradoxically mature for an audience whose world view is limited to the satellite strains of Ekta Kapoor tele-serials. That Kalapi’s trajectory, perhaps meaningfully reduced to the four P’s of Passion, Poetry, Perfidy and Poison is not doing well because its subject is too abstruse for the average Gujarati is indeed telling of the times we live in.
KALAPI: An ABRIDGEMENT OF PASSION, POETRY, PERFIDY & POISON
On the other hand, the characterization of Kalapi is overtly romanticized. He is continuously shown as a victim of political intrigue and jealousy. We hence only get a one-dimensional view of a man who it seems was also extremely well-read and had produced a copious amount of literature in his lifetime.
