Prithvi Theatre was the confluence of artistry during the Thespo Festival from 13th to 18th December 2011. This year, as Thespo enters adolescence, there was a lot to look forward with a grand line up of plays, theatre workshops and band performances.
The venue was buzzing with activity and animation, some chatting away at the Prithvi Café, others darting back and forth across the venue. The Thespo team, consisting mainly of under-25 young men and women has done a great job in organizing this grand festival.
4 plays were handpicked out of a whopping 95 from seven cities across India. These plays plunder relevant and current social issues such as cancer, homosexuality, suicide, pregnancy, inter caste marriage and politics, seemingly grim topics with steady, unwavering smiles.
The Marathi plays were thoroughly enjoyable, harmonizing the serious with the comical, often involving making a decision that ends up being life altering.
‘Patient’ is a young man’s struggle against cancer during the 1970’s, a time when medical science hadn’t made much progress. The performance was ensconced with subtle yet powerful theatrics. As the young lead struggles to cope with the disease. A powerful performance and a powerful play.
December 15th saw the performance of ‘Ek Don Adich’ directed by Aniket Patil. Everybod’s got problems. Especially the young man who struggles to commit suicide at Koparkhairane platform in the dead of the night. Having missed his train to his heavenly abode through a series of interruptions, his frustration and anger is our source of mirth.
A blind man stumbles onto the platform, and consequently opens up his eyes to reason, resonating the play’s anthem ‘Any two incidents are co-related to each other’.
A deliberative play that scrutinizes chance vs. fate, coincidences vs. scripted destiny and slants a bit towards existentialist aspects, it’s definitely worth a watch.
‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ directed by Abhishek Dave and Chinmay R Kulkarni is a not mundane by any angle. It touches upon a miasma of social issues such as inter caste marriage, pregnancy, safe sex, politics and women’s rights which plays up the humour throughout the story.
21 year old Dilip discovers that his girlfriend 19 year old Mandakini, is pregnant. Dilip’s father in law, Patil, is a man with a political background advocates inter-caste marriages in the village. We observe how Dilip scrambles to save himself from this dire situation and how Patil tries to exploit Dilip for political profits. A charming little ditty, with a colorful cast of characters, it’s simultaneously enjoyable and very educational. The intermittent song and dance routines give a charming rustic feel to the play. The performances from all the actors was filled with gusto and…
The Thespo 13 Awards Night saw ‘Patient’ walk away with the awards for Outstanding Play, Production Design and Director. ‘Ek Don Adich’ grabbed the ‘New Writing’ award. ‘Patient’ and ‘Janhit Mein Jaari’ both tied for the ‘Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role’ with Siddharth Mahashabde and Ashish Nasalapure receiving the awards respectively.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, January 2012:
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes%20January%202012_1325153219.pdf
Friday, January 13, 2012
Film Reviews: 'Last Year in Marienbad' and 'Muriel'
Alain Resnais is one of the elements of the Rive Gauche or Left Bank which is associated with the French New Wave. The topography of his films is lined with habitual themes like memory, forgetfulness, nostalgia, illusion and a pre-occupation with the past.
His unconventional mode of filmmaking can be seen as simultaneously ingenious and irritating. The subject matter, on more than one occasion, never fails to baffle, perplex, confound and bewilder. He clearly isn’t a stickler for rules, with unpredictability in terms of story and editing being his strong suit. Two of his films, ‘Last Year in Marienbad’ and ‘Muriel or The Time of Return’ were both screened at Prithvi Theatre.
In a magisterial resort chateau at an undisclosed location, a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) and a woman (Delphine Seyrig) meet. The man is convinced that he’s met a woman the previous year, fallen in love with her and made plans to run away with her. The woman claims that they’ve never met and that she doesn’t remember any of it. A third man (Sacha Pitoëff), presumably the woman’s husband, is also makes his presence felt
So really, is he telling the truth? Or is she simply denying the affair? And is any of it real at all? Amidst a hazy storyline, we’re not given any concrete evidence to work with, all the while wondering along with the protagonists, what is real and what isn’t.
The man’s voiceover narration is in past tense as the scene unfurls before us in the present. Scenes leap from the present to the supposed past and back, staccato-like yet not without a lyrical quality. It’s successful in suggesting the disconnection and abstraction that pervade the people and the drowsy atmosphere in the film.
The camera work of Sacha Vierney is lustrous as it swimmingly sweeps down in black and white, with long tracking shots.
Majority of the film is blanketed by the plangent expanse of organs, the kind of dramatic music that works very well with a horror movie.
Having aged over forty years, the film that was once heralded as stupefying is now bordering on unfathomable and frustrating. And is this film simply a study in style and mastering the fine art of being ambiguous or a rendition of art way ahead of its time that’s simply aged?
‘Muriel or the Time of Return’ revisits the theme of war, after his Resnais’ first film, ‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’.
We’re introduced to Helene (Delphine Seyrig), a middle-aged widow and antique saleswoman and her step- son Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée) who live in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Helene runs into her old love Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kérien). As Helene is haunted by past experience with Alphonse and Bernard is haunted by his experiences from the war in Algiers, where he had partaken in the event of torturing and killing a girl.
Unlike his previous two cinematic operas, cinematography by Sacha Vierney foregoes black and white for colour which somehow doesn’t have the same effect as Resnais hoped it would. The film conducts itself in a linear manner, but is just as complex and not as bewildering as Marienbad.
Architecture is manipulated to make the presence of passing time known. Time is a stentorian presence that conjoins Marienbad and Muriel. In the former, there doesn’t seem to be a well-defined sense of time or place, whereas in the latter it is the opposite. However in Muriel, a personal love story between two people is juxtaposed against the effects of the repugnancy of war. It seems to inquire how a person can finally seek closure and move on from the past. The film also helped shed light on the Algerian War of Independence.
Dealing with recurring themes and motifs, you can say that he makes the same film over and over again. In a world where movies are told in a linear narrative, and have some amount of predictability, Resnais’ films may seem slightly corroded and weary to watch, yet undoubtedly each one has its subtle nuances, tones and artistic execution that make them memorable.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, December 2011 :
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_December_201_1322204635.pdf
His unconventional mode of filmmaking can be seen as simultaneously ingenious and irritating. The subject matter, on more than one occasion, never fails to baffle, perplex, confound and bewilder. He clearly isn’t a stickler for rules, with unpredictability in terms of story and editing being his strong suit. Two of his films, ‘Last Year in Marienbad’ and ‘Muriel or The Time of Return’ were both screened at Prithvi Theatre.
In a magisterial resort chateau at an undisclosed location, a man (Giorgio Albertazzi) and a woman (Delphine Seyrig) meet. The man is convinced that he’s met a woman the previous year, fallen in love with her and made plans to run away with her. The woman claims that they’ve never met and that she doesn’t remember any of it. A third man (Sacha Pitoëff), presumably the woman’s husband, is also makes his presence felt
So really, is he telling the truth? Or is she simply denying the affair? And is any of it real at all? Amidst a hazy storyline, we’re not given any concrete evidence to work with, all the while wondering along with the protagonists, what is real and what isn’t.
The man’s voiceover narration is in past tense as the scene unfurls before us in the present. Scenes leap from the present to the supposed past and back, staccato-like yet not without a lyrical quality. It’s successful in suggesting the disconnection and abstraction that pervade the people and the drowsy atmosphere in the film.
The camera work of Sacha Vierney is lustrous as it swimmingly sweeps down in black and white, with long tracking shots.
Majority of the film is blanketed by the plangent expanse of organs, the kind of dramatic music that works very well with a horror movie.
Having aged over forty years, the film that was once heralded as stupefying is now bordering on unfathomable and frustrating. And is this film simply a study in style and mastering the fine art of being ambiguous or a rendition of art way ahead of its time that’s simply aged?
‘Muriel or the Time of Return’ revisits the theme of war, after his Resnais’ first film, ‘Hiroshima, Mon Amour’.
We’re introduced to Helene (Delphine Seyrig), a middle-aged widow and antique saleswoman and her step- son Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée) who live in the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Helene runs into her old love Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Kérien). As Helene is haunted by past experience with Alphonse and Bernard is haunted by his experiences from the war in Algiers, where he had partaken in the event of torturing and killing a girl.
Unlike his previous two cinematic operas, cinematography by Sacha Vierney foregoes black and white for colour which somehow doesn’t have the same effect as Resnais hoped it would. The film conducts itself in a linear manner, but is just as complex and not as bewildering as Marienbad.
Architecture is manipulated to make the presence of passing time known. Time is a stentorian presence that conjoins Marienbad and Muriel. In the former, there doesn’t seem to be a well-defined sense of time or place, whereas in the latter it is the opposite. However in Muriel, a personal love story between two people is juxtaposed against the effects of the repugnancy of war. It seems to inquire how a person can finally seek closure and move on from the past. The film also helped shed light on the Algerian War of Independence.
Dealing with recurring themes and motifs, you can say that he makes the same film over and over again. In a world where movies are told in a linear narrative, and have some amount of predictability, Resnais’ films may seem slightly corroded and weary to watch, yet undoubtedly each one has its subtle nuances, tones and artistic execution that make them memorable.
For Prithvi Theatre Notes, December 2011 :
http://www.prithvitheatre.org/uploads/pdfs/PTNotes_December_201_1322204635.pdf
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