The agony and the ecstasy of staging a play: the experience in Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, mussoorie

The creative hiatus that had struck me in phase 1 finally left me and I promised Joyoshi that if she takes the onerous task of becoming the fine arts society secretary, I’d definitely help her stage a play. The fact that many of us wanted to stage a play was definitely a welcoming one but the  first point of contention was what play it would be. The suggestions ranged from practically “un-doable” plays like “waiting for Godot” to very “doable ones” like “mouse trap”. Some of us wanted light hearted humour and some wanted intense play showing modern man’s predicament and travails. There were debates about “art for art sake” and  art for other “not so arty” reasons and finally I had my way by bullying others (chiefly Cyril) to accept my idea of doing an adaptation of a german play (friedrich duerenmatt’s “der besuch der alten dame”) which I stumbled upon as a student of the language during the university days. I had also seen a very interesting but very bold hindi adaptation of the same play which left an indelible mark on me.

And then came the issue of non-availability of script. The copy we ordered through library was to take at least 15 days for arrival and hence we decided to write a script based on the basic story of the play but incorporating the consummate Indian ethos along with certain aspects of western philosophy. So while there were allusions to Draupadi from hindu mythology, there were also references to “infernal pools” and purgatorial fires” (inspired from Dante himself), making the play instantaneously Indian and yet universal in its appeal.

The play explores the themes of the man’s most primordial instincts of greed and revenge. It presented us a Mephistophelian choice where Prem (Cyril) barters his soul (unlike faust’s 25 years of absolute power) for mere earthly trifles like land, cows and buffalos and this barter haunts him at the end of his life, when the Frankenstein monster of his own making in the form a vengeful Hemvati (suman rawat) comes to claim his soul. She epitomises the saying, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” as she laughs neurotically and forewarns him of being hell herself when Prem hoping to revive an old romance, innocently says that he knows she has gone through hell.

I, however, think that the hallmark of the play is its townspeople (played by ashutosh niranjan, bhaskar lakshkar, kartikeya goel, arjun, neha Sharma, sonika and garima mittal) who perceptibly succumb to their greed, selling their souls in little degrees and do what they had hitherto called impossible. We see them coveting hemvati’s money while assassinating her character, singing her praises as she decides to bequeath an astronomical sum for revamping the town’s economy, being scandalised as hemvati asks for prem’s head in lieu of her help and then slowly but knowingly drifting towards being exactly what they claim not to be when they say “hum bikau nahi hai”. The townspeople are directed by a hypocrite mayor and his even more hypocrite wife (played beautifully by shah faesal and joyoshi respectively) who claim to be friends of prem and yet not only connive but also partake in this macabre dance of greed and murder. The only voice of reason being professor shekhar(Praveen), who after many failed efforts of trying to reason with the blood thirsty crowd, stands as a helpless spectator as prem is lynched by the mob and his wife’s (played by me) screams are muffled. 

Staging this play presented us with many difficulties. But in-between interaction with seniors, excursions with friends, visits by spouses and a myriad other pre-occupations, we did manage to rehearse and practise the play to put up a fairly decent show against all odds. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to nakul, safi and ashutosh salil for their help with background sound, lighting and narration and also the handful of audience including the esteemed faculty and some faithful friends who made our evening with their presence and encouraged us.

- Neha Bansal