Went to hear the reading of Jean Paul Savage and the Reichenbach Fall at the Opus tonight. This is part of BLT's Theatre for Theatre. Good attempt. Not necessarily supper theatre, but in a genre where you can listen to a play while you munch and chew.
The only catch in this evening's performance was no one told the traffic outside to shut-up! Every time there was a green light, the honks would start. And you could not hear the actors. Even in the noise, we did manage to catch a few jokes, good ones at that.
I think it is a good attempt by BLT to do this and the team that put it together. However, the next time let us get some mikes please.
I hope we can actually get to see the play soon as well...with out the traffic and on stage
Showing posts with label BLT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BLT. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Reading of Jean Paul Savage and the Reichenbach Fall
Bangalore Little Theatre does what it calls the Go Fourth! It is a gathering of interested folks under a roof to do something or anything about theatre. We watch movies, read scripts, chat...whatever. Today we met for the first time after the Ungrateful Man to read Jean Paul Savage and the Reichenbach Fall by Doug Huff. The killer part of the whole session was that Doug was there at the reading. And there was actually a very good turnout of people for the reading. There were around 20 - 30 people. That is a lot.
The play is set in 2 acts, deals about Jean Paul Savage middle aged, cigar loving, Philosopher, Cigar Loving , Private Detective. The play begins with a murder and ends with a couple (?) with some murders in the middle. All the work of the Male Menopause Killer! What is the real killer is the humor. The play is so funny! As someone pointed out, as you are reading the play you can actually imagine each of the characters. I had Humphrey Bogart playing Jean Paul Savage! That will tell you something about the genre. Not one line was wasted and the audience was in splits at the jokes coming in. There are stereotypes that are made fun of. And it is wonderful how everything gets tied up together. And the jokes flowed as the Krishna Raja Sagar in full flow.
BLT is planning to do a reading of this in Opus on Oct 9th. Be there!!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
50 years of Bangalore Little Theatre
Amazing that an amateur theatre group has managed to survive for 50 years in Bangalore when the average age for a group is normally 8 years! If all goes well it will, in 2009-2010. I am new to this one, but yesterday I had an unique opportunity to meet the first few members of the group as we get down to plan for the golden jubilee. They recounted tales of how it all started. Looking at the group and reflecting on what we do today in BLT, I was surprised at the similarities between the ages. The passion to do theatre was foremost.
BLT has survived several Tsunamis. It has been given up to be dead with no money in the Bank. But people still managed to do pull it out. The torch has been passed from one generation to another. Needless to say it has flickered many times, but the flames never went out. It has lit several other torches that are burning bright. Many groups came out of BLT for whatever reason.
But even today BLT remains. There is something to that. It is amazing to see people even now talk passionately about what they did.
Lets hope that as the golden hour approaches all of us (the people who left and the people who remain), can contribute something to celebrate a unique organization that has managed to survive through sheer passion of many committed individuals.
BLT has survived several Tsunamis. It has been given up to be dead with no money in the Bank. But people still managed to do pull it out. The torch has been passed from one generation to another. Needless to say it has flickered many times, but the flames never went out. It has lit several other torches that are burning bright. Many groups came out of BLT for whatever reason.
But even today BLT remains. There is something to that. It is amazing to see people even now talk passionately about what they did.
Lets hope that as the golden hour approaches all of us (the people who left and the people who remain), can contribute something to celebrate a unique organization that has managed to survive through sheer passion of many committed individuals.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Grateful Men
Even before it all began, the first show I mean, we had a blast. It was a very different play that I was a part of. Lot of people in the cast, and lot of people to watch too! That made it a lot of fun. And The Hindu was kind to us as well.
When Vijay first told me about the play, I honestly was not too thrilled with the story of Monkey, Tiger, Snake etc. But when we read the script for the first time, there was magic. It was simple yet nice. Funny and witty. All of us actually enjoyed reading it.
Then the rehearsals with the SPOT 2007 folks and all the other ex-SPOTTERs and future SPOTTERs made it fun. I did not realize how the 3 months had gone away. There were times when the more diligent of us were mugging the lines, the lazy bunch that was in there (yours truly was part of it) winging it, eating 2 samosas (all right! all right! I had 3 :) ) that I have wondered how the hell will this turn out to be a play that people pay and watch. We were doing it for Dream a Dream...was it going to be Nightmare at Ranga Shankara, I feared.
Guiding us through this mayhem was Vijay (the Bheeshma Pita Maha, if you will) and Vijji (often wondered what is the deal with extra j). Vijay had to manage the real monkeys er...us, and Vijji the younger ones. Man did they pull it off! I am sure the kids who go to Vijji's Magic Puddles would be so lucky that they have her to learn from.
Anyways, show time came and went. The cast had a blast, the crew had fun and whatever happened we all laughed a lot backstage. One of my key learnings in this play was whatever you do have fun doing it in the play. The size of the part does not matter. There were so many folks fighting to play the rock, the friends, the people in Kashi. One of the best shows I had was when I was doing a 30 s role as the doctor who tries to save the princess...a blast. The other key learning was to do a play that entertains people, you need to be happy doing it. The happiness that you had on stage translated to one off stage. When the tempers were up backstage, the onstage team suffered and I guess the audience did not get a great show.
Of course, for me this play was a challenge as I had to do a critical part on a couple of days fighting through Laryngitis (for the record, I still am fighting!). So I must thank the kind doc who did not ask me to keep quiet but gave me drugs to tide things over, to my two special friends who went home and made turmeric milk with pepper and saffron (which was promptly attacked in the green room!). No thanks goes to the "Tigers" who beat the living daylights out of me :). And I will be a ungrateful dog, if I don' t say that the play was what it was because of the amazing kids. Kudos guys and gals.
And who knows, there may be more shows of the UGM and we can have more fun...I would be grateful.
When Vijay first told me about the play, I honestly was not too thrilled with the story of Monkey, Tiger, Snake etc. But when we read the script for the first time, there was magic. It was simple yet nice. Funny and witty. All of us actually enjoyed reading it.
Then the rehearsals with the SPOT 2007 folks and all the other ex-SPOTTERs and future SPOTTERs made it fun. I did not realize how the 3 months had gone away. There were times when the more diligent of us were mugging the lines, the lazy bunch that was in there (yours truly was part of it) winging it, eating 2 samosas (all right! all right! I had 3 :) ) that I have wondered how the hell will this turn out to be a play that people pay and watch. We were doing it for Dream a Dream...was it going to be Nightmare at Ranga Shankara, I feared.
Guiding us through this mayhem was Vijay (the Bheeshma Pita Maha, if you will) and Vijji (often wondered what is the deal with extra j). Vijay had to manage the real monkeys er...us, and Vijji the younger ones. Man did they pull it off! I am sure the kids who go to Vijji's Magic Puddles would be so lucky that they have her to learn from.
Anyways, show time came and went. The cast had a blast, the crew had fun and whatever happened we all laughed a lot backstage. One of my key learnings in this play was whatever you do have fun doing it in the play. The size of the part does not matter. There were so many folks fighting to play the rock, the friends, the people in Kashi. One of the best shows I had was when I was doing a 30 s role as the doctor who tries to save the princess...a blast. The other key learning was to do a play that entertains people, you need to be happy doing it. The happiness that you had on stage translated to one off stage. When the tempers were up backstage, the onstage team suffered and I guess the audience did not get a great show.
Of course, for me this play was a challenge as I had to do a critical part on a couple of days fighting through Laryngitis (for the record, I still am fighting!). So I must thank the kind doc who did not ask me to keep quiet but gave me drugs to tide things over, to my two special friends who went home and made turmeric milk with pepper and saffron (which was promptly attacked in the green room!). No thanks goes to the "Tigers" who beat the living daylights out of me :). And I will be a ungrateful dog, if I don' t say that the play was what it was because of the amazing kids. Kudos guys and gals.
And who knows, there may be more shows of the UGM and we can have more fun...I would be grateful.
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