A scene from Tota Bola during the graduate show at the National School of Drama. PHOTOS: Asian Age

THIS YEAR’S graduate show at the National School of Drama (NSD) featured six productions. The ideas and themes chosen by the class of 2011 were quite novel.
For instance, the interactive show Zero One designed and directed by Ashish Sasidharan was tried to involve the audience in the actual performance. In a dumb charade, one of the actors approached me with a recording of a girl who is obviously dying. With an actor looking unblinkingly, you had to react to this last breath being drawn. Another actor held a box of tawdry paste jewelry and alongside it a recording of the tsunami interspersed with the word “pulse”. Wearing a unisex grey jumpsuit the actors, each carrying an object, went amongst the spectators. The theme of the interaction was the breath and the body amplified in the finale where an actor wearing nothing but flesh-coloured pants goes around the space breathing in and out. It did not work even as the rest of the actors lay down prone on the floor. Though I did not attend Ferrous, reports suggest that despite the concrete information, this also did not quite work. The production by Vishnupad Barve and company traced the history of the mines via performances, blogs, installations and games. Besides the creators the audience must also accustom itself to this new concept of interactive theatre for it to take off.
The opening play of the six-day festival, Mirage written, designed and directed by a Manipuri student Loigotongabam Pariganba was based on Kalidas’ epic poem Ritusamhar. In his interpretation, the director visualises the poem as a land where the young dead are burnt by the government as unknown bodies. Where women weep over these, the bodies of young men killed in fake encounters or while revolting against an inhuman military system. He feels that the play displays the fight for existence of a people caught between desire and despair; it is a model for the situation in Manipur.
The actors begin reciting the verses and suddenly implode to take the opposite stance.
By counter pointing the sentiments and the style of performance the director gives a bitter edge to the show. Take for instance the scene of two lovers enjoying the full moon light of sharad poornima. Suddenly they realise that the moon is actually a search light in the Army camp. And the search light follows the scared couple as they run from its menacing light. From being soft and romantic it becomes menacing and dreadful. The actor’s physical movements and speech portraying the dread and fear was very well done. The consistency in the performances was exemplary. Jannat Mahal was designed and directed‘ by Sahana P. and was based on a story by Karnad writer Fakir Muhammad Katpadi which has been dramatised by Asif Ali.
The setting was quite beguiling — a sparkling white courtyard with a row of red refrigerators arranged on one side. The three open sides had transparent polythene curtains representing “parda” in the female quarters. Religion, money and tradition are the three pillars of which Jannat Mahal stands for. Zulekha is married to the tyrannical Akbar. On his dying without producing an heir, the younger brother Munir marries Zulekha. A democratic sort he gives Zulekha her space. She can go out alone.
However, he makes her join the women’ empowerment movement. He forces her to read. But he will not go to bed with her, as he considers elder brother’s left over. There were some interesting visualise. In the opening sequence with the fairy-like figures were intriguing. The refrigerators were used as a place for Akbar’s body and a safe for Zulekha’s jewellery. The last sequence where Zulekha sits on the bed with water all round her and the cast members floundering in the water was interesting.
Of the other two plays Tota Bola was a delightful enactment of Chandrasekhar Kambar’s Kannad play Jo Kumaraswamy, translated in Hindi by Vasant Dev and designed and directed by Sajal Mondol. The tale of the bombastic Gowda or Gohra who as the most powerful man in the village pretends he is very potent and carries a huge mounted gun as symbol of his power both sexually and socially. Basanna whose father was killed by the Gowda over a land dispute organises the villagers against the tyrant.
Meanwhile, the Gowda’s wife who is childless wants to propitiate the fertility god jokumaraswami, which unfortunately has been appropriated by the old prostitute.
The Gowdi manages to get the symbol of the idol, the huge green gourd which she cooks into a curry and takes to a hut in the night for her impotent husband; instead she feeds it to Basanna by mistake. When the Gouda hears that is wife is pregnant with Basin’s child he attacks and kills him. The play also speaks of land to the tiller in the theme. Excellent music and great acting by each and every member of the cast marked the show.
The finale Papa Laden is directly inspired by the Israeli company Ish’s hilarious comedy, Odysseus Chaoticus, featuring three characters, a Jewish father, a dreamer and his crazy wife. Their out-of-this-world antics kept one laughing ceaselessly. The third-year students tried hard to match this professional and gifted trio and did rather well. Directed by the intrepid Abheesh Sashidharan, the play, his second at the show, had the audience in splits with the three talented actors M. Bharathi as the Papa, Gunman Baruah as the dreamer husband and Mun Mun Singh as the crazy wife playing well in tandem. They are in fact all mad but retain a sense of social and political reality. The shortage of water is beautifully satirised in a sequence where when the pump does not work the man gives the father a bath with a pipette. Then there is mad scene with toilet paper rolls. The crying of the baby in a pram was mimicked by the woman in the original with hilarious results. Here too I think Mun Mun tried and succeeded. The costumes by Sahana P. with its exaggerated bustle for the woman and the hairstyles of the men were excellent.