Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Feb 6: The consummate one-hour solo-performance by Ronlin Forman, the 62 years old American actor/director/writer of Pigeon Show: A Play of Fools, came out as a high watermark of the ongoing International Theatre Festival, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
Staged by Individual Performance, a group from California, USA, the show, a collage of number of dramatic pieces was a contemporary commentary, not of political or social struggles, but of personal/human dilemmas. The form of show marked by the use of the hearty humor of the Comedia dell’arte, highlighted the dread of the grotesque and the paradoxical provocation of the fool to examine our universal struggles with finding identity and significance in this world.
Playing five characters, Ronlin Foreman raises existentialist issue and questions cultural constructs that are primary foundations of human experience and ‘meaning’ of abstractions which rule our lives such as time, space and objects. “It is a comedy of juxtapositions and dichotomy. Pushed to the limit, this sometimes becomes anguish’.
The masterly performance by the veteran actor, who often moved in and out of the play, joking, dancing, juggling, was marked with imaginative use of props like the door, chair and the masks. The background musical score, light design-all were woven as an organic whole.
The welcome interactive session with Ronlin Foreman, which followed the performance, helped the audience to fully grasp and appreciate the abstract import of today’s show.
Tomorrow on the penultimate day of International Theatre festival being organized by National School of Drama, New Delhi, in collaboration with Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture & Languages, Armen Pather, a play in Kashmiri, directed by Ravi Shankar Kemmu and performed by ALG Cultural Society, will be staged.
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