Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 19: Natrang today presented the world classic ‘Rashomon’- based on stories by Akira Kurosawa under the direction of Aarushi Thakur a post graduate from University of Leicester, UK and a trained actor from Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London.
Never in the annals of history had witnessed such sense of enthusiasm and rejoicing as were witnessed by the audience at Amar Mahal Museum in Jammu.
Theatre was seen in a never before manner where a palace was used as a set for the play Rashomon. Natrang has done a similar experiment with its play Richard III. The greenery of the garden and the blooded colours of the walls were complimenting the strategic plot of the play.
`Rashomom’ revolves around a story in 12th century Japan where a samurai and his wife are attacked by the notorious bandit Tajomaru, and the samurai ends up dead. Tajomaru is captured shortly afterward and is put on trial, but his story and the wife’s are so completely different that a psychic is brought in to allow the murdered man to give his own testimony. He tells yet another completely different story. Finally, a woodcutter who found the body reveals that he saw the whole thing, and his version is again completely different from the others.
A priest, a woodcutter and another man are taking refuge from a rainstorm in the shell of a former gatehouse called Rashômon. The priest and the woodcutter are recounting the story of a murdered samurai whose body the woodcutter discovered three days earlier in a forest grove. Both were summoned to testify at the murder trial, the priest who ran into the samurai and his wife traveling through the forest just before the murder occurred. Three other people who testified at the trial are supposedly the only direct witnesses: a notorious bandit named Tajômaru, who allegedly murdered the samurai and raped his wife; the white veil cloaked wife of the samurai; and the samurai himself who testifies through the use of a medium. The three tell a similarly structured story that Tajômaru kidnapped and bound the samurai so that he could rape the wife – but which ultimately contradict each other, the motivations and the actual killing being what differ.
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