Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award & Festival came to an end with the staging of “Chandala, Impure” (Tamil) at Shri Ram Centre recently. Despite the fact that the play was inordinately long, the audiences remained glued to their seats as the narrative unfolded intense love, vigorous dances, hatred and murder. The play severely indicts India’s caste system, projecting its dark and inhuman face.
Directed by Koumarane Valavane and produced by Indianostrum Theatre Puducherry, the broad outline of the narrative is drawn from Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”. We meet two young lovers Jack (Romeo) and Janani (Juliet), their families and Aaya (Nurse to Juliet). There is the Balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. Here in Chandala is a similar reference to Balcony to reveal the profundity of love.
Conflict of interest
But in terms of conflict between the two families there is fundamental difference. Both Romeo and Juliet belong to high aristocratic society who hate each other because of family feuds. Janani, a beautiful and tall girl blooming with youthful radiance, is the daughter of a Brahmin and Jack is the son of a Dalit, the lowest among the low caste, the Chandala. He lives in a place disdainfully called by upper caste as colony. This makes the antagonism between the families irreconcilable. In such a society, there is no place for true love and this noble sentiment is doomed to be poisoned culminating in bloodshed.
The thematic kernel of the play is drawn from a true life story of a high caste girl who marries a Dalit despite the vehement opposition of her parents. The boy was killed, the guilty were convicted and the girl became a social activist fighting against honour killing and centuries old deep-rooted hatred for Dalit.
To highlight the element of sensuousness, the director has incorporated the character of Kamadeva in his mythological costume and form. Apart from this character, explicit erotic images are projected on screen creating the illusion that film is shown in a cinema hall. In the darkness of the hall, there is brief close encounter between Janani and Jack. This clandestine encounter brings the lovers very close.
The stage is designed in a way that provides screen upstage on medium height which is used for the display of subtitles in English and Video projection. On the right is shown Janani’s house and on the left there is a shop where young people from the colony meet and this shop also becomes the hiding place of Janani and Jack when they start living together. On the centre stage, vital dramatic action takes place – a sweeper half-naked trying to open a blocked sewer. Here, a ferociously terrifying ritualistic dance takes place. Here Janani and Jack display strings puppets which suggests in a metaphorical way the cruelty perpetrated on lovers in a vile and cruel society which hates a section of its own people who are discarded on the basis of Varna.
Anjana Balaji as Janani, Dharanidharan U as Aaya and Vasanth Salvam as Jack give riveting performances.
Andha Yug (Hindi)
In the past, we have seen great productions of Dharamvir Bharati's contemporary classic Andha Yug, a verse play by India’s tallest theatre directors like Satyadev Dube, E. Alkazi and Bhanu Bharti who brought out to the fore the dramatic splendour and its warning to the humanity about nuclear holocaust if countries in their madness wage war. The latest version of this celebrated play produced by TAAM, Manipur, Imphal which was part of META as well as recently ended Bharat Rang Mahotsav, is a tour de force. Finely tuned, it is remarkable for its complex rhythm, intensity and mounting conflict that move towards the climax in a seamless manner which the audience watches with bated breath.
Andha Yug (Hindi)
Directed by Joy Maisnam, a talented director, whose forte is creation of poetic imagery on the stage with multiple colours to reveal the wide gamut of human emotions of characters grappling with their emotional and psychological dilemmas. The play generally takes between one hour and a half to two hours to unfold the last day of the Eighteen-Day war of the Mahabharata. It takes nearly three hours to stage Andha Yug in its entirety which is rarely attempted. Joy's production takes one hour and ten minutes to complete the show. He has taken liberty to edit dialogue in verse. In the original text, two characters-Yuyutsu and Ashwatthama are vital to invest the epic with contemporary meaning. Yuyustsu joined the Pandavas with the conviction that they are fighting Dharma Yuddha and fought against his own Kaurava clan. After the war, he remains unacceptable to both the sides. Alienated and disillusioned, he commits suicide. Joy has removed this vital character because his emphasis is on Ashwatthama who wages deadly one-man war against the Pandavas to avenge the death of his father Dronacharya and the death of Duryodhana because both were killed by resorting to Adharma at the behest of Krishna. However, towards the close joy has retained most of the dialogue delivered by Vyasa, Gandhari and Krishna.
The play unfolds on an empty space with fierce fight taking place downstage. Upstage is used to project imagery. The light design by senior light designer Avatar Sahni, and the offstage sounds add depth and intensity to war scenes. The imaginatively designed costumes reveal the sense of mythological ethos.
Mohd. Shahnwaj as Ashawtththama invests to his character a deep sense of revenge, indulging in genocide to destroy the universe, challenging Krishna. Sajida, a seasoned actor, as Gandhari gives brilliant performance. Her flawless elocution and inner anguish make her curse to Krishna over the bones of her hundred sons dramatically powerful, profoundly moving the audience.