Ungrateful Man - The Second Edition

It has been a while since I got on to the blog machine, which gives me lot of focus coz hindsight is 20-20!!
We gathered around Nov 13 to do another bunch of shows of the Ungrateful Man. Very different experience from the first in some aspects and pretty much the same in some aspects. Still no voice :-( I was rasping through the play! We became much more cool...may be complacent. On the final day of the play, we actually reached the audi at 6:45 for a 7:30 show. We were victims of the Bangalore traffic (and that is as best an excuse as it gets!). Other than that the cast came together as though we were professionals. We literally walked into our roles. May be this is how real professionals work.
The limited practices we had were scary though. Everyone forgot lines or worse remembered the lines of the other person.. The run throughs and the "word throughs" were to put it mildly disasters. We really did not know how it was going to be. But I guess this is where experience helped. Everyone knew that while we sucked as individuals the team would come through. And luckily it did!

My favorite moments in the play
1. The new queen's "shoo" at the goldsmith
2. The over enthusiastic wedding guests who drove the Brahmin insane by always cutting him before he mentioned in the most cinematic manner "Ungrateful Man". This competed with the juveniles in the group shouting "Tiger-a"
3. The overenthusiastic snake that came into the stage before it was supposed to come. Luckily the brahmin who was supposed to have a conversation with the snake, hid behind his generous behind and acted as if he did not see the snake!

1st Day - 2nd Show - Must review OSO!!!!

As the title says, due to a rare alignment of stars your truly ended up watching Om Shanti Om. Before all the IT hotshots woke-up, I woke up at 5:15 am to book tickets for a theatre many did not know existed. Since, it is a first day event I thought I will 'review' the movie. But then even as I said the word review, self doubt crept in. Can I review like a national award winning buddy of mine. Who am I kidding, enough of the review bakwaas and instead I decided to focus on my reflections (sounds cool when I say it)...I shall now reflect on the movie!

First things first, I loved the end...I mean the real end when Farah Khan misses the auto. That was cute!! I think in some sense that is a reflection of the movie. A movie on movies and movie people where no one takes themselves seriously. And when they do, they stink! There is some stinking in this movie, but not much.

I loved the fact that everyone was made fun of. Even in a senti (or as they used to write it irritatingly in those days when Om kapur was all of 10 years, psenti with the 'p' silent) scene you don't know whether the characters were serious or not. I loved Akshay Kumar in the "Return of Khiladi" and Abhishek in Dhoom 5 where he is nominated for best actor because he is not there in that movie!!!

I loved the fact that they actually tried to sell the movie looking at you straight in the eye and telling us that "you believe people flying, hitting 10 villians, why not this story" and why not! I loved that Sharukh decided to fight like a true South Indian Film hero.

I loved Deepika (Thank you Prakash!). She hopefully would get to do more than just have that amazing, radiant smile in the coming movies. I am all Shanthi to see this for now, but the gal was good at making fun of herself too.

I liked Kiron Kher's Maa. She must have done this role with her eyes closed, but she was funny. Shreyas was awesome, so talented an actor! Comedy comes naturally to him. But is he getting typecast??

There is of course no OSO with out the king Khan. He is uber cool in this movie. He succeeds because even when he is goofing off he is soooo sincere. That is cool. You can watch it for Shah Rukh.

Of course, I did not like the fact that they suddenly went serious for a few minutes. The best part was when you thought that the movie was lost because Farah wanted to 'tell a story' it rescued itself. If I were thinking of the screenplay again, I would rethink some of the transitions in the second half. But don't worry Farah I am one of those who was completely entertained by this production from you guys...Good fun, keep it up.

And as a friend pointed out, When you entered the movie theatre and started seeing the movie, you knew the movie...you knew the end before they actually did it. You knew it all...spooky no? Naah!!! Just good old Hindi picture yaar!!! We are born with it!

Solitude of the Emperors - My reflections

I read "Solitude of the Emperors" by David Dravidar. There were two reasons why I bought the book. One was the India Today review which suggested that this book was a must read. Second was that I had read the authors first book, The House of Blue Mangos. In the Blue Mangoes book, I loved the first portion just for his description. I personally thought that he had lost his way towards the end. The gripping opening is not followed by a good second half.

So I started reading Solitude with a lot of expectations. The comments that I am going to type below may be affected by the fact that I did not read the book at one go like many. I did what I could, and here is what I felt.

The things that I greatly appreciated was the author's control when he describes a place. The opening sequence was so good and so gripping. The author described small town K..so well with its sweet stall and sleek hospitals. Someone I know was commenting on the rise of hospitals in the Nagercoil area and I thought that the author had a done a great job describing the scene. Some episodes like the demeaning behavior of the higher caste brahmins were so natural. Seeing Indian words like kolam without italics told me that Indian English had arrived and we need not apologize to others that this was a word from the vernacular.

My disappointments were again with the end. It was like a poor Sivakasi pattasu. A lot of noise, flame in the beginning and a total busss in the end (see no italics!!). From the start as the story progressed, I felt the author went into a discourse mode. He does this through the book that is being read by the main protagonist. Nice book within book, but only gyan. The end came on to me in a very tame manner. So fast that I did not realize that the story had ended! May be the author decided that after all this was an incident in Meham, a small village and it did not merit more. Somehow where the author wanted me to connect, I missed it. Completely! Totally! Hence I feel after I read the book that I missed a ride that the others enjoyed but I am left panting having missed the train that has just left the station. May be the subtleties were lost on me (being bang on middle of the normal distribution).

As I reflect, I feel that this is a good book that people should read. But if you are expecting an emotional cauldorn or intellectual superstuff that you woudl be thinking for 2 days after you read the book (e.g. Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki...MUST READ), this book is not it. But I will recommend it for the first part...again.

Dear Mr. Dravidar, thank you for Solitude, but please, please build in more drama...you do it so well that it is a shame we don't get to see the full picture. And don't be in a hurry to finish the book. That is the feeling I got with Solitude.

And, What A Yudh!

Yesterday I watched for the first time in my life, a play in Manipuri! The play was called Andha Yudh and it was performed by Chorus Repertory Theatre, Imphal.
Since this is the first time I was seeing a performance by Chorus Repertory Theater and their style of performance, you could say that I was blown away.
The play is about the last day of Mahabharata and the madness of Ashwattama. As the epic goes, Ashwattama completely loses it and avenges the death of his father by slaughtering all the sons and daughters of the Pandavas. The narrative describes the pain that Dhritarashtra and Gandhari go through on hearing the death of Duryodhana, their one hope of victory. The death and destruction that continues after the great war where brothers fought brothers and families were torn apart are presented in a poetic manner.
The opening of the play with the cross lighting and the eerie looking chorus walking through really gripped my attention. I was not prepared for this. From then on the build up was great. There was very little quiet on the stage. Action, dance, music. What was amazing was that I could understand the emotion even though I had no clue what they were saying!
May be because of that, I was observing body language etc like a hawk. There was some rough edges in some of the choreography. There was a feeling that the lady who played Gandhari, while very good, was getting repetitive in her movements. The role of Vidura was unclear. The use of modern props (like sun glasses etc, the use of stretcher, nurses to symbolize the futility of war) were neat touches. Overall, one walked away with the feeling that the play wanted to convey on the futility of war. Be it an eon ago or be it in the neighborhood in the country next door. Peace! Peace! Peace!

Theatre 4 Theatre - The Reading @ Opus

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

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!!

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.