Girish Karnad’s play Flowers is a dramatic monologue that invokes memories of U.R. Ananthamurthy’s novel Samskara whose film version in 1970 was Karnad’s acting and scriptwriting debut.
Flowers traces a priest’s surrender to the sensuality he has thus far suppressed and his subsequent fall from grace. His downfall is heightened by the conflicts that present themselves in his immediate social environment.
Flowers is directed by Roysten Abel and performed by Rajit Kapoor, the seasoned actor and co-founder of Mumbai-based theatre group Rage Productions. It premiered in October 2006 at the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival and has been staged in several cities in India and abroad.
Kapoor points out that, although certain rhythms inherent in the piece may have changed in subtle ways over the years, the production has not changed significantly. “As an actor this production strips you down. It is challenging to be on stage alone for that long and hold everyone’s attention,” he says.
At its core is a tale from Karnataka’s Chitradurga region in which a devout priest — with a particular talent for decorating the lingam in the temple with flowers — loses his way when a beautiful devdasi Chandravati requests him to visit her. A straightforward reading of the play would lead us to interpret it as a specific priest’s moral dilemma.
But the play deliberately suppresses any hint of action and focuses with almost claustrophobic intensity on the priest’s unsentimental account of his fall. Throughout the 80-minute performance he is perched on top of an audaciously imagined phallic stump.
The set design invokes the elegance of rituals; a bronze basin with flowers and the sound of dripping water gradually overpowers us. The subterranean ambience is a metaphor for the priest’s narrative and allows the dual impulses of restriction and freedom to reveal themselves in his confession. But this is a space where mundane morality can be transcended and deeper metaphysical questions including the possibility of a forgiving God and the quality of mercy can be raised.
A setting such as this could have quite easily become a staging that makes a fetish of good production values and overplays prettiness. But Kapoor’s remarkable integrity and composure as an actor invests Flowers with the seriousness the play needs.
Flowers
Where : Experimental Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai
When : August 11 and 12
