There's no end to it
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Ram Gopal Bajaj's "Anth Nahein" presented by the second year students of National School of Drama was one of the best by the students that one has seen for a long time, says ROMESH CHANDER.
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A scene from a play "Anth Nahein".
WE HAVE just seen "Anth Nahein", Hindi translation of Badal Sircar's "Shesh Nai" by Rati Bartholomew and Ram Gopal Bajaj presented by the second year students of the National School of Drama and directed by Ram Gopal Bajaj. The presentation was one of the best that one has seen by the second year students. It served the pedagogical needs of the students at its best and for this the director assembled a team of some of the best in the profession like Bhaskar Chandavarkar for music, Amba Sanyal for costumes and Ashok Sagar Bhagat for lighting design, all of whom have a long experience of working with drama students. Some of the students specialising in different fields like costumes or lighting design, etc., say that the guest teachers not only taught them the basics but provided ample opportunity for hands-on training, so much so that in one case Ashok Bhagat got the director's permission not to even sit in the lighting booth during the show when a particular student was on the panel. It just goes to show the teacher's confidence in the student's work.
Badal Babu wrote "Shesh Nei" in 1970 and as mentioned, Bajaj with Rati Bartholomew's help translated it into Hindi as "Anth Nahein" in 1973 for Dishantar's production that premiered in Delhi on September 6th that year. Incidentally this was Bajaj's first full-length theatrical production and the cast included people like B.V. Karanth, Sudha Sharma, Prema Karanth, Anuradha Kapur, Shyam Arora, Banwari Taneja and Bajaj himself, some of whom later became famous names in Indian theatre.
But why "Anth Nahein" after 22 years, one asked the director and that too with second-year drama students? "When I was invited to do a production with the second year students, we began by reading many scripts like Mama Varerkar's "Bhumi Kanya" and many other plays. After much discussion we decided on this. Then again, the text has always intrigued me because Badal Babu's journey of theatrical awareness, from `Evem Indrajeet' to `Juloos' has been encapsulated in its entirety," says Bajaj. Fair enough.
Large cast
Personality choice is welcome for yet another reason. Since the cast is very large, most of the actors in the cast play double roles and this gave an opportunity to almost every one to play the main roles. Bajaj as an actor is fully aware of the frustration that sets of when some of the students do not get an opportunity to play more important roles.
The director's overall production design was yet another device to provide a different kind of an opportunity to the actors practice their art. The use of Muktibodh's lines set to music by Bhaskar Chandavarkar both as a prologue and epilogue gave yet another dimension to the production and as some one from the cast remarked, "it opened new vistas and possibilities" for him.
The cast as a whole has much promise but at times the mannerisms of some of them were clichéd like those of the lawyer with hands in his pockets. It is not their fault, it is what they see in almost all the court scenes in most TV serials but as this batch of second year students is one of the best that one has seen over the years and could well be a turning point in the `Chalta Hai' attitude that seems to have set in NSD for the last few years.
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
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Thiruvananthapuram
