Stark realism, stark slips
DIWAN SINGH BAJELI
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A critique of the moral bankruptcy in our society today, "Bin Baati Ke Deep" could have done better with more rehearsals.
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Playwright Shankar Shesh's works are remarkable for their pungency and stark realism, underlining the social role of theatre. Some of his plays like "Ek Aur Dronacharya" and "Poster" are frequently staged. His "Bin Baati Ke Deep", which was presented by Bela Theatre Welfare Society recently at LTG auditorium in New Delhi, is seen for the first time in recent years. It exposes the psyche of the middle class, its rapacious nature of self-aggrandisement and its spiritual and moral bankruptcy.
The play is directed by Sanjeev Johri, who is associated with Abhiyan and Osho World. It projects the world of a mediocre poet and his visually challenged wife.
The failed poet marries her because of his love for her, despite his parents' strong opposition to thealliance. But soon the husband shows his real colours as the wife displays her genius as a creative writer. The wife dictates novels to her husband , which turn out to be masterpieces of Hindi literature and a source of huge income due to royalties. A jealous, greedy husband masquerades as the author of these works because his wife is not able to see through his shameless act of betrayal.
Tangled relationships
As the play opens, we hear a telephonic conversation between the husband and the publisher, with the latter asking for early completion of the novel. It illustrates that the husband is the most celebrated author and a hot commodity for the publisher, whereas the real author is kept in the dark. Gradually, the tangled relationships between the husband, the visually challenged wife and the lady typist are revealed. The husband and the lady typist, who are carrying on a love affair, conspire to create a web of deception around the wife.
The first half of the production tends to be inadequately rehearsed. Some of the performers are hardly audible. Their movements are facile, and lacks inner motivation. However, in the second half the production acquires momentum. The director and the performers are able to build tension on the stage. In the play, the conflict is not overt. It is within that the characters are gradually haunted by their guilty conscience.
The telephone plays an important role in heightening the conflict and stirring the action. In fact, it assumes the form of a character. The dominant tone of the production is one of seriousness. However, comic relief is provided by the character of a novice playwright. A more subtle and intricate directorial approach would have projected the character of visually challenged author as a metaphor for a great genius being plundered and ravaged by relentless forces of consumerism.
In the original play, the wife forgives her husband and makes a rapprochement after he is exposed. The director has given it a twist here: the wife walks out on her marriage. This ending imparts to the production a force which is in tune with contemporary aesthetic sensibility.
Sanjeev Johri as Shiv, the husband, brings to the fore the perfidious trait of a plagiarist. Rekha Malhotra Johri's Vishakha, the visually challenged woman, is endowed with great sensitivityand fertile imagination, but she is nave, simple and too credulous to see through the deception of her husband. Sunita Narain as Manju, the typist, and an accomplice of the husband in the treacherous act, should have been louder to make her lines audible. Manu Dhingra as Major Anand, who acts as a catalyst to expose the wicked husband, strikes a chord in the audience. Sankalp Rastogi as Natwar, a novice playwright who unwittingly reminds the husband of his guilt through the reading of some portions of his halfbaked play, offers amusing moments.
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Chennai and Tamil Nadu
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