Ideas botched by handling
KAUSALYA SANTHANAM
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The themes might have been varied but treatment was clichéd at the Kartik Fine Arts’ festival.
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Photo: Nethra Nandakumar
IMPASSIONED EFFORT: From ‘Enru Thaniyum…’
There was a very good turn out for the plays inaugurated at the Kodai Nataka Vizha of the Kartik Fine Arts at the Narada Gana Sabha auditorium. It led one to hope for a revival in interest in Tamil drama.
The problems created by caste divisions were taken up in Sowmya Theatre’s “Enru Thaniyum…” written and directed by T.V.Radhakrishnan. The theme was put across through the anger and distress of a youth who is at the receiving en
d of a system that discriminates on the basis of caste. A veteran lawyer (Karur Rangaraj) gets a young man who is accused of murdering a politician, acquitted. But history repeats itself and another similar crime is committed. The lawyer is as surprised by the turn of events in the court as the others who witness it and tries to discover the identity of the killer.
The theme was tackled in an unusual manner but in the end the playwright seemed to give up. He turns to the usual device of getting his points across to the audience through a direct sermon. He reels off statistics, touching on the lacunae present in education, politics, administration, et al while you wonder whether you haven’t heard it all before.
Jayasurya as the frustrated youth put in a sincere effort while his grandfather shook his hands so agitatedly in “palsy” that you could see him a mile off. “Enru Thaniyum…” was an impassioned effort. It had its moments of interest but lacked suggestion and was overly stated.
Prayatna which put up the well structured and inspiring work on the life of Swami Vivekananda last year, came a cropper with “Uyir Mei Ezhuthu,” a basket of clichés on the need for communal harmony The analogy between a country divided and an apartment block in which three families belonging to three different religions live and initially squabble, is too obvious. It is stretched further when, threatened to be deprived of their houses by an outsider, they all unite.
The three boys belonging to different faiths, who are great friends, try to think of ways and means to abolish religions and come up with some hare-brained schemes. The elderly watchman is the Socrates who has an opinion and explanation for all phenomena — spiritual, emotional or materialistic — and is the guardian of home and hearth. He is like no watchman you have seen. Repetitive scenes ensured the play, written and directed by K. Vivek Shankar, did not move an inch in half an hour. Though an enthusiastic cast made an effort, it was to no avail.
In “Uyir Mei Ezuthu” the road to boredom was obviously paved with good intentions. The playwright needs to don his thinking cap and come up with better fare next time if he does not want to dilute the effect built up by some of his previous works.
The usual dose of suspense was provided by Augusto through “Nijam 1 Nizhal 2.” Augusto has created a niche for himself by writing and directing whodunits filling a need on the theatre scene. The play begins with a scene where the doctor informs a patient that he has an incurable form of cancer. Far from shocking the audience into sympathy, the announcement generates much amusement, a doctor in the next row commenting that the actor must have spent half the night rehearsing the complicated scientific name.
‘Nizhal 1…’
The young man takes the news almost in his stride. After wondering how to break the news to his doting father, he plunges into unravelling a much publicised case of homicide. This is ostensibly to help him prepare for death by getting to know the accused who is sentenced to be hanged. It brings the audience in contact with a highly melodramatic jail superintendent who has more than his share of woes and pours them out in a flood.
The woman who is accused of murder however is unfazed. But one gets to know her better as she shrilly unfurls her persona. Anand, who is known for his brilliance, gets to the truth at the end though his father’s calm acceptance of his fate is rather weird.
The play with some gory shades of a Stephen King thriller succeeded with the build up of the suspense and managed to hold the attention of the audience. But it was tediously long and loud. The explanation at the end was confusing and tangled and as usual the blame was laid at the politicians’ door.
Soundarya, as the accused, had her moments but overall was too shrill and loud while Adithya playing her brother, put in a charged performance as a jilted youth. Bringing some sanity into it all was K. Raja as Anand, and K.S.Palani as the friend of Anand’s father who draws out his boastful friend on the subject of his son in a deprecatory way that quite often generates humour.
The music, inappropriate and deafening, was the chief culprit in the play. If one expected a sleek thriller, chilling and subtle, Augusto Creations’ “Nijam 1 Nizhal 2” did not fill the bill; it was only a shadow of what might have been. More restrained handling would have produced better results.
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