Under an oak tree , a play starring Mohammed Ali Baig brought the curtains down on Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival 2017.
Autobiographical in every sense, the play written by Noor Ali Baig traces the coming-of-age of an anonymous boy who’s at a crossroads in life, caught between his father’s legacy, his own heart’s calling and societal obligations.
Nostalgic recollection
The journey has poignant moments, is steeped in nostalgia, with lines that aptly describe the innocence of childhood and instances that would make for a solid drama. Yet one would have expected to see the drama unfold on stage than hearing a nostalgic recollection through a monologue in Baig’s voice.
Baig displays narrative modulations to good effect through the one-hour duration with immensely personal references, but there’s little in it to call it a play. The actor at the end says, “Is the story mine? This could be yours too.” Well, there are too many self references that ought to have ignored to convey this universality. The burden of matching up to a father who was a theatre legend, multiple plays where he refers to Hyderabadi history, receiving the Padma Shri award from the President give enough hints on who he’s referring to.
Background score
What compensates for the lack of on-stage drama to some extent are the impressive production values and writing that’s replete with impressive imagery. The use of the monsoon backdrop to describe the fateful night where the boy’s father passes away, the descriptions of the himayat mangoes, the royal essence of Hyderabad, the display of a series of advertisements in relation to the protagonist’s advertising stint come across as interesting devices to narrate a story. The background score and timely musical references to describe a few moments do ensure a surprise.
However, the fact that you don’t see a protagonist undergo those moments and only listen to a verbose narration, limits the story’s potential and the chances of a spectator empathising with the characters. A one-hour duration is good scope to tell a story with a multitude of emotions like happiness, guilt, self-discovery and so on, but the narrative format only tests one’s patience. The oak tree is shown to be a symbol of growth, of one that provides shade, but the play never grows on you. What’s more disappointing is the gap between the potential it had and how it ultimately unfolds.
