The curtain went up for ‘ Moondravathu Kai ,’ the first of Kala Mandir’s two plays at Narada Gana Sabha (story, dialogues and direction for both plays are by Bombay Chanakya), to reveal a stage crowded with actors, and totally bereft of any furniture. There is nothing wrong in dispensing with props. What matters is that the story should be well etched. Unfortunately, in this case, the story, or what little there was of it, was disappointing. It had a familiar ring to it, with a few tweaks here and there.
Adimoolam (Kathadi Ramamurthy), psychiatrist and playwright in his spare time, is the patriarch of a joint family, which threatens to fall apart due to the constant bickering. Adimoolam comes up with a play, which has a message for his family. So it was a play within a play. Adimoolam’s play talks of live-in relationships, lesbianism, homosexuality, single parenthood, pre-marital sex etc. And there is a tangled web of connections, very similar to K. Balachander’s film ‘Apoorva Ragangal.’
The individual stories should have been woven into a broader social context, with thought-provoking juxtapositions to make the narration meaningful. There should have been a plurality of voices, each expressing different concerns and problems. Instead, there was just a signature tune – ‘we won’t be lonely if we are united and live in a joint family.’ Too facile an assumption. Is it not possible for one to feel lonely even in the midst of a friendly crowd?
The sudden patch up between Adimoolam’s daughter and daughter-in- law, had an unreal feel to it. The play meandered over different areas, unsure of its course, before finally settling for the comfort of conformity.
However, it was most heartening that a non- Tamil speaker such as Homai Baria enunciated her lines with clarity.
The second play, ‘ Naangavathu Ulagam ,’ which dealt with the dangers lurking in social media, went way beyond the promised one hour, but was a better play, in terms of structure and presentation than the first. Sita is addicted to social media and coos with delight every time a Facebook post of hers earns a like. Anand becomes a Facebook friend, and long chats on the phone follow. After a few friendly chats which help cement the friendship, the tenor of the conversation changes, with Anand asking Sita intrusive questions. Sita’s innocent ego trip becomes a nightmare when Anand threatens to post morphed pictures of Sita on the net. Sita becomes a nervous wreck and commits suicide. That an educated woman like Sita should have committed suicide, instead of complaining to the police was a bit of a stretch.
The play was a timely warning about the insidious dangers of social media. But perhaps, the playwright should have explored the implicit risks from different angles, instead of focusing on just one gullible woman. That would have broadened the scope of the play, and helped to relieve the monotony of the repeated phone conversations between Sita and Anand, which were overdone, and after awhile, became predictable.
Bombay Kumar, as Anand, gave a cracking performance. His evil laughs were chilling, and the mocking inflections he gave to every lewd remark he made marked him out as a very good villain material.
Effective use of lighting heightened the tautness. Delhi Ganesh as the father of Sita slipped into his role with ease. But how did a scheming person such as Anand walk so easily into the trap laid for him by Aparna? Perhaps, the playwright was himself beginning to get tired of all the repetitiveness and decided to end the play, albeit hurriedly and quite unconvincingly.
