Death interpreted
"Death by EVAM" is given new thrusts and twists. — Pic. by R. Ragu.
"DEATH" IS an early, funny but not much talked about play from the agnostic religio-philosopher Woody Allen. Kleinman is yanked out of bed and forced to join a search party for a killer on the loose. The vigilantes feel the police are doing a shoddy job and it is their responsibility to set things right. Frustration and desperation generate new strategies, which resultin factions emerging. Nobody knows who the killer is. So they rush around trying to find him while he is running around killing.
Kleinman is not told what his part in the plan is, simply because nobody knows the plan. Kleinman does not have a plan; nor did the killer. He encounters the killer and is killed. The killer says he was loony and had to kill. Kleinman says that the killer looked like him. Anyone could be anything. And then the Woody Allen theology falls in place. The play is about how we have almost no control over what is happening around us and how it is pointless to look for meaning. And thenonhindsight, we see why the unfunny and the bizarre are so funny when the trivial and the mundane are juxtaposed against major cosmic concerns.
Last week EVAM was back at the Sivagami Pettachi Auditorium with their fourth production, under the banner of Royal Sundaram, their presenting sponsor for the coming year. Posters announced "Death by EVAM" as different from "Death" by Woody Allen. In their characteristic style of adaptation, the group retained the script but gave it new thrusts and twists primarily by varying the speed and tempo. In particular they experimented with replaying critical moments — providing different takes on the same thing.
Once again they gave their audience, who faithfully filled each show to capacity, total entertainment. Sunil as Kleinman was excellent and struck a relationship with the audience right at the beginning. He was on stage the entire hour and a half, maintaining pace and energy and then some more at the very end when Karthik, as the killer, joined him. They were some of the best moments of the play. It was promising to see a stage crowded with newcomers, most of whom were first timers. It is to EVAM's credit that they are serious about training, attracting and absorbing the uninitiated into their fraternity. Then there were the old hands like Vidyuth and Jagan who held up the play with their sure-footedness.
Set design was simple and functional. The two segments in deep peach contrasted the bizarre churnings of death on an outsized back-screen. They also returned to their tradition of using the aisle. An impressive flight of steps from the balcony had the scantily clad Spiro, Woody Allen's motif of Godman, and the priestesses coming down into the audience from above. The accompanying music both in choice and in quality was impressive.
The lighting design was aesthetically very appealing. The execution, however, could have been smoother. The `dance' of the opposing search parties lacked synchronisation and fine-tuning. The choreography missed an opportunity to communicate irrationality or meaninglessness, and the resultant humour.
However, the success of EVAM and "Death" was that despite these problems not once did the play loose the attention of the audience. Even if you chose not to ponder over the subtext you came away having had a good laugh, your mind stimulated.
The crowds cheered wildly as Sunil exhorted them with, "You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Remember, life is not worth it — Death is!" "Death by EVAM" reopens on June 25, for another four shows at the same venue.
ELIZABETH ROY
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