–6TH DAY NATIONAL DANCE & THEATRE FESTIVAL
Patiala: 6th day presentation of 10 days National Dance & Theatre Festival organized by North Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC), Natraj Arts Theatre, Kalakriti and Punjab Sangeet Natak Academy present a play Surajmukhi Aur Hamlet staged at Kalidassa Auditorium Virsa Vihar Kendra NZCC.
RANJIT KAPUR’S “SURAJMUKHI AUR HAMLET has unleashed a comic frenzy. The one-act play was presented by NATYANGAN. The sources of humour are the absurd situations, crazy characters and their ludicrous behaviour. The conflicts are resolved in a simplistic way.
Recipient of Sangeet Naatak Academi and Dada Saheb Falke Awards for script writing Ranjit Kapur has directed the play. Apart from distinguished writing Ranjit Kapur is a well known director and actor lyricist in the field of Indian theatre and film fraternity.
“Surajmukhi Aur Hamlet” which opens with a domestic squabble between husband and wife. The husband is a noted writer. The bone of the contention is a letter that the writer discovered from his wife’s closet. The husband suspects that his wife is having an affair. Insulted and humiliated, the angry wife decides to leave for the house of her illiterate sister. As the fight between the husband and wife reaches the ugliest high pitch, enters a lady drama critic from Bangladesh to interview the husband. She has brought with her a photographer also. The embarrassed husband manages to receive the drama critic but his wife continues to fight, making her tone fiercer. In the midst of the cacophony, the drama critic tells the writer that his play has evoked tremendous interest in Bangladesh and hence she has come all the way to interview him. Her persistent question is to elicit the opinion of the writer on love. The harassed writer has to deal with two ladies – his wife and the young lady from Bangladesh – simultaneously.
The interview is interrupted by the ringing bell of the telephone. As the writer attends the call, he discovers that the caller is a woman looking for her ex-husband. More and more visitors continue to meet the writer. His mother wants him to search a new flat for her. He is forced to receive call from his friend, a writer from Mumbai, whose script has been accepted by a Bollywood producer. The writer wants his suggestion as the heroine insists change in the ending.
Before the writer begins to express his view on ‘love’, a tramp arrives, demanding money from the writer to help him out of his financial crisis. He is followed by two plumbers to attend the complaint of leakage. As if, this crowd was not enough to create bedlam, a team of strangers arrives, claiming to be police personnel, suspecting that the writer is running a racket of prostitution. The presence of Bangladeshi young writer makes them all the more suspicious. The writer is at his wits’ end to receive the frequent telephone calls from a divorced wife and his friend from Mumbai. The mayhem in the writer’s room becomes terrifying that he loses his sense and in frenzy starts shooting all those present there.
Set designing by Naushad Hussain will aptly provide adequate space for the exit and entries for the performers as well as acting space to be viewed clearly by the audience. The brilliant comic timing contributes to make the production hilarious. The swift pace ha helped to highlight the farcical elements. Adapted by Ranjit Kapoor from “An Episode in the Life of An Author” by Jean Anouilh, widely performed French playwright, in the lead role of the husband/author Awadhesh Kumar Misra is eminently comic. Facing an immensely ridiculous situation, his author sinks deeper and deeper into the bedlam created by the landing of unwanted visitors to his flat, he becomes all the more hilarious. The audience will immensely enjoys as it watches him facing nightmarish situations. Aparna Singh as weeping maid servant ,Shivam Katiyar and Abhishek Singh as plumbers , Saumitra Srivastava as a dependent unemployed friend Veeru, Krishna Deva Sanvariya as C.I.D. Inspector, Akhilesh Srivastava as Shishu and Kaustubh as Chintu Chopra are displaying excellent sense of timing, the energy he imparts to his comic characterization, the dialogue delivery and the moments all contribute to make all the performers remarkable comic actors. Annu Goel essentially a Kathak dancer, as writer’s mother, Parul Gupta as a Bangladeshi drama critic, Seema Saini / Sakshi Singh as the wife of the writer, Shalini Gupta as the divorced wife frequently calls on writer’s phone and as the harassed and weepy domestic helps add to the comic rhythm of the production.
On this occasion SK Thapar DGM Punjab National Bank, Ravinder Pal Singh, Manjeet Singh Narang IAS (Retd.), Avtar Singh Arora, Parminder Pal Kaur & Gopal Sharma Festival Director, Raj Kumar, Nirmal Singh, Amarjit Singh Walia and Parkash Tiwari were present.
