Collegians usually earn their theatre spurs by interpreting existing plays – as in the 11th national Atelier Campus Theatre Festival and the latest production by Dramatically Correct, though all of these stopped short of the 60-minute barrier, which meant that they didn’t really test their abilities to the fullest.
Leher (Delhi College of Arts and Commerce) stood out with Akash Mohimen’s Mahua, a script that originated several years ago in Rage’s playwriting workshop. Their Hindi translation retained most of the tragic story about Santals deprived of employment opportunities and displaced by governmental land acquisition. The director, Ravi Kalra, evidently a close observer of good theatre, displayed the most mature hand among the three participating teams and used authentic design elements.
Lady Shri Ram College offered the most original choice of text, selecting a Turkish drama in English translation. Tuncer Cucenoglu based his Avalanche on a village in mountainous Anatolia, which lives as silently as possible for nine months of the year, for fear that any noise may trigger an avalanche. Even childbirths can take place only during the three summer months. When a woman goes into labour prematurely, mandatory punishment ensues. Allegorically, the repressive regimentation symbolizes authoritarian rules anywhere. But the all-women cast, many in male roles, needed to express older behaviour more realistically.
Jadavpur Presidency Theatre Association’s The Sweeties adapted David Campton’s The Cagebirds, where abstract representatives imprisoned in a cage parrot their raisons d’etre in a loop, joined by a wild bird who exhorts them to flee, to no avail, until she too succumbs to enslavement. Campton’s simple playlets fell out of favour in the plethora of sophisticated absurdist drama, and our local students don’t make him look any better by the sheer wordiness and repetitiousness of their dialogue.
Dramatically Correct’s Waiting for Pizza takes on nothing less than Waiting for Godot – that existential muse for all undergrads. Every college-going theatre artist has attempted his/her own re-imagining of Godot; the classic can well be retitled Waiting for Graduation. The absurdities of our educational system and the uncertainties of what-next, which Dramatically Correct understand better than we do, could supply director Navamita Chandra’s motherlode for an expanded edition. At present, despite the group’s obvious talent and training in all aspects of stagecraft, and lots of funny business, they skate on the surface and get distracted, seemingly shy of targeting their frustrations as acerbically as they should.
(From The Times of India, 21 March 2019)