You act because you want to forget yourself… You act because you would go mad if you didn't act.
Kean by Jean Paul Sartre
Theatre is demanding, unpredictable, exhausting. Running a theatre group centred around amateur talent is even more challenging. A group like Ajit Chitturi's Thespian En survives on grit, faith and passion.
Keeping that in mind makes it easier to appreciate their latest production ‘Jist.' An ambitious project, it's a collection of crucial scenes from high-powered playwrights: challenging even for a team of weathered professionals, given the fact that stormy emotion needs to be built up slowly to be effective. At Jist, every story began at a dramatic peak, making helpless slides inevitable.
The performance began with Rabindranath Tagore's version of the tension-fraught meeting between Karna and Kunti, between preparations for war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Swashbuckling Kean, the talented and self-destructive actor who inspired Jean Paul Sartre, followed. The next piece, also by Sartre, was ‘Nekrassov', a biting satire on thoughtless anti-Communist propaganda. And finally, there was ‘Caligula' by Albert Camus.
The performance, staged at the Edouard Michelin Auditorium, Alliance Francaise, was weakened by the landmines of amateur theatre: unconvincing characterisation, flailing energy and some overacting. But it was neat and well-rehearsed, rescued by enthusiasm and good intention. The audience was incidental. Thespian En acts because they must.
