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THE SUIT
Lacking cohesiveness
The original story, by Can Themba, is set in Sophia town, South Africa, during apartheid. But Neelam Mansingh chooses to abstract it from the socio-political context reducing the story to a quintessentially human predicament. This places a far greate
r challenge on the actors in terms of clarity and rigour both in motivation and action. However, apart from an unselfconscious physicality which revealed itself in a very tender and humorous opening scene, neither of the two actors was able to cope effectively with the dark brooding presence of the suit, a metaphor for shattered promises and unfulfilled dreams, carrying with it an underlying sense of menace and impending sense of doom.
Many of the directorial choices were perplexing and lacked cohesiveness. Why did two minor characters have to make fleeting appearances, when the presence of all the other characters was mimed? If indeed there were no socio-cultural signifiers for the characters why choose a realistic set, complete with LPG stove and Bisleri bottle and other props? Instead more care could have been taken to develop the predicament of the main characters.
RAJIV KRISHNAN
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