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A few good plays and a festival

Different languages, different themes (Clockwise from top) Scenes from ‘Repati Swargam’, ‘Court Martial’, ‘Charpai’ and ‘Galileo’.

Karna Bharam, a Malayalam play, was one among the many staged as part of the week-long National Drama festival organised by Rasaranjani, Department of Culture, Sangeet Natak Akademi and South Central Zone Cultural Centre at Ravindra Bharati. The play was staged by Loka Daharmi of Kochi, and directed by Chandradasan.

The play presents a transliteration of Bhasa’s Mahabharata into Malayalam by Kavaalam Narayana Panicker. The play highlighted some traditions like Kathakali and tribal folk dances. The story revolves around the memories of Karna on the 16th day of the war, when he leads the Kaurava army.

Karna is literally haunted by curses and insults hurled on him by great men like Bhishma. The drama was effectively presented by the troupe.

The presentation was oriented towards dance and characters like Indra and Karna were in Kathakali costumes. The head gear was made of a leafy flower (mogali reku) with traditional lamps lit on plantain trunks. Ceremonial atmosphere prevailed everywhere. Sanskrit also added to the mythological atmosphere. .

Among the large cast, Sumesh Chittoran in the title role of Karna, Sudhirbabu as Indra and Jyothi as Kunti stood out.

The festival also saw Telugu play, Repati Swargam. The play was written and directed by Modali Nagabhushna Sarma. He reveals that this play was the outcome of inspiration he got from Confessions of an Economic Hit Man of John Perkins and The Madwoman of Chaillot of French playwright Giraudoux. After watching the whole drama you would conclude that there was no story as such but a satirical approach to expose the exploitation in the name of Globalisation, of which India is a All sinister minds gang up forming different groups to exploit the resources. Sarma takes the example of exploitation of oil and gas. How to face this problem is the issue. The central character in this drama is given the funny name of Pichi Maraaju, a name we use to address a good hearted person.Through this character, a situation is imagined as to what to do when groups of selfish men visit their village to exploit the oil resources, supposed to be available there. Pichi Maraaju is a Zamindar and is intelligent enough to find ways and means to teach a lesson to exploiters. He comes to know that there is a tunnel underneath his palace dug by his grandpa, for a different purpose. He gets it opened and a keeps a door ready to open and send the exploiters one by one into the tunnel, never to return.

Court Martial, originally written in Hindi by Swadesh Deepak was taken up by Tripura’s Khovai theatre troupe called ‘Cultural Campaign’. Arunpal is the director of this Bengali production.

The back drop is an army court, the functions of which are not too familiar to the general public. The play gives an insight into the methods of functioning of an army law court. The theme deals with the rift between the upper and lower castes, which is prevalent in the army too. A case is filed in the court against a soldier, Ramchander, stating that he killed his superior officer Capt. Mohan Verma and made also an attempt on the life of Capt. Kapoor’s life. Ramchander is brought before the court for court martial.

Presided by Brig. Surath Singh, a ‘Vicharak’ (jury) is set up. The defence lawyer Capt. Bikash Roy analyses what made Ramchander commit this crime and discovers that the reason was caste rivalry. Ramchander pulled the trigger, convinced that he was being ill treated by his boss Captain Verma. And the ‘Vicharak’ blames the caste-based complexes that made Ramchander to commit crime in a fit of emotion. The dialogues in the court scene are crucial. But since this was a Bengali production, the larger section of audience could not follow the court arguments. The message that army should be above social prejudices was conveyed well. The 11 member cast came up with effective performances. The stage concept and design was imaginative. Chandan Hore did a fine job of portraying Ramchander. Rajit Chowdhuri played the judge. Defence lawyer Capt Bikash Roy’s role was taken up by the play’s director Arunpal himself. This troupe won many awards for this production.

The Hindi play Charpai was staged on the penultimate day of Rasaranjani’s National Drama Festival. The play was penned by Rameswar Prem and produced by Alaknandan. The play was more of a psychological drama, reflecting the mental conflict and agony in a family of three generations - a retired man and his wife, their son and daughter-in-law and grand children living under one roof.

Nija Nataka Iyakkam’s Tamil drama Galileo is an adaptation of German play of the same title by Bertolt Brecht. T.S. Satta Sivam translated the play in Tamil and the play was directed by M. Ramaswamy. The play highlighted the fact that Galelio never compromised with his findings. The drama debates on issues related to science .

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