Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 29: While one team of Natrang is at North-East to extend the Heroic Dogra ethos and folk/cultural opulence with the presentation of its landmark Dogri play ‘Bawa Jitto’ in prestigious Rashtriya Poorvottar Rang Utsav organised by National School of Drama, the other team back home presented a new English comedy play “Director’s Nightmare” based on an act of William Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Sunday Theatre Series at Natrang Studio Theatre. The play has been directed by Aarushi Thakur Rana and has been devised during a week-long workshop on ‘Shakespearean Comedies for Children’.
The play “Director’s Nightmare” revolves around six amateur actors who have coincidently got a chance to perform in front of the Duke and the Duchess on their wedding night, they get together at their rehearsal space to discuss the play and its script.
An endeavour was made to present the play in its original Shakespearean language and poetry. Comedy flourishes in the play from the opening of this scene. ‘Peter Quince’ and his company are rehearsing their rendition of ‘Pyramus’ and ‘Thisbe’ but ‘Bottom’ has serious reservations about the play because Pyramus kills himself with a sword, and the lion is frightening, both factors that are sure to terrify the women in the audience.
The other players agree, wondering if the play should be abandoned, but Bottom has a solution that a prologue needs to be written to explain that Pyramus is only an actor, and the actor playing the lion must show half of his face during his performance and tell the audience his true identity. With these problems successfully solved, Quince mentions two other difficulties with the upcoming performance: It requires moonshine and a wall.
After consulting a calendar, they discover that the moon will be shining on the night of the performance, so they can simply leave a window open. The wall is a greater dilemma for these silly men.
Finally, Bottom discovers a solution: An actor covered in plaster will play the role of the wall. Everyone agrees, and the rehearsal begins.
The short play was very ably performed by very enthusiastic students who exhibited immense talent and command over language and expressions.
Those who performed in the play included Keshav Sabharwal, Vaibhav Sharma, Pranika Gupta, Riya Sandal, Parth Anand, Saday Samnotra. The music was rendered by Nirmal Kak, lights were operated by Bhisham Gupta. The show was coordinated by Gauri Thakur.
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