Uncovered in comedy
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K.V. Subbanna's Moliere translation Mama Mooshi is a satire on hypocrisies of the French society
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OBSESSIVE DESIRE Mama Mooshi features a rising member of the middle class who yearns to become a gentleman
In keeping with their 28-year-long tradition, Benaka Makkala Nataka Kendra had their theatre workshop for children this summer too. Having produced Shakespeare's King Lear with the children last year, Prema Karanth had decided to go in for a comedy this time and invited Ekbal Ahmed to re-produce one of his most successful productions, Mama Mooshi, K.V. Subbanna's Kannada translation of Moliere's Comic classic, The Bourgeois Gentleman. The play was staged at the Ravindra Kalakshetra recently.
One of Molière's greatest comic creations, The Bourgeois Gentleman satirises the sham and hypocrisy of French society, its underlying themes being social striving, financial greed, and love's ingenuity. The play is set in Paris in the 17th Century, an age of opportunism, savagery and wit. It features a rising member of the middle class who yearns to become a gentleman, but succeeds only in making a fool of himself.
The bourgeois gentleman in question is Jourdain, a wealthy tradesman, a nouveau riche boor, who is painfully aware of his lack of gentility. His obsessive desire to associate with the gentry takes over all reason and moderation. He spends an outrageous amount of money on fashionable clothes and employs a bunch of instructors to teach him the trappings of a true gentleman - dance, music, fencing, language, etiquette, and philosophy.
Added to these are a sham count and marchioness, his supposed links with the aristocracy. The way these people vie with each other to exploit his vanity and gullibility exposes the pretensions and foibles of the times.
Jourdain's no-nonsense wife, lovesick daughter and her smart maid also take advantage of his gullibility to get what they want. With the help of a couple of young beaus they enact an exotic ritual through which Monsieur Jourdain is made Mama Mooshi, a member of Turkish royalty.
Though set in 17th Century France, the play is universality. As K.V. Akshara suggests, the play appears like a metaphorical representation of the way the country is losing its rich culture in its obsessive desire to imitate the West. Ekbal tries (rather clumsily, though) to draw our attention to this possibility through the opening song.
But for this sequence, the design is almost the same as in Ekbal's earlier productions of the play, though it does not have the polish they had. The fault, however, is not with the children. They do a pretty good job of their roles, Chandrakeerti (Jourdain) and Sowmya (Nicole) in particular.
Costumes are colourful (sometimes, intentionally gaudy) and music appropriate. But the production lacks the finish that one normally finds in Benaka Makkala Nataka Kendra's annual workshop productions.
LAXMI CHANDRASHEKAR
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