Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Oct 18: Uma Jhunjunwala’s Hindi translation cum adaptation of Ismail Choonara’s original English play A Broken Chair staged under the title Ek Tuti Hui Kursi, came out as a captivating performance at the Abhinav Theatre, here today.
Presented by Amateur Theatre Group and directed by Sandeep Verma as part of its young director’s series, the evocative play while highlighting purely existentialist issues that included certain explosive truths about religious, psychological, communal and ideological dimensions of the Indian society.
The plot revolved around three college mates whose chance meeting at a secluded and abandoned place littered with junk, results into humdrum conversations that apparently centered around a three-legged chair, a broken watch, project the trio as characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of cliches, wordplay, and nonsense.
Led by talented debutant Sakshi Bhat as Sumitra, Sandeep Verma as Ravi and Vivek Sangotra as Aziz-the young actors were successful in maintaining the momentum through the fast pace of dialogue delivery and almost flawless movements. While the male actors at times sounded a little flat and monotonous, it was Sakshi Bhat who lit up the stage with a wide range of emotions oscillating from carefree and casual to grave ones full of ominous subtext.
Today’s play was marked with experimental stage design by eminent theatre director Mushtaq Kak, background score by Ankit Sharma, lights by Sunil Sharma and costumes by Kanchi Khajuria. Mohit Puri assisted in the production.
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