‘Written My Diary’ marked with affected play design

A scene from play Written My Dairy staged by The Performers at the Abhinav Theater on Thursday. -Excelsior/Rakesh
A scene from play Written My Dairy staged by The Performers at the Abhinav Theater on Thursday. -Excelsior/Rakesh

Lalit Gupta

JAMMU, Nov 22: Performance of the play ‘Written My Dairy’, by The Performers, a group of young talent apparently from the field of modern dance, modeling and fashion shows, despite being high on enthusiasm and very good in patches, came out more as a medley of disparate formal elements, at the Abhinav Theatre, here today, .
Written, designed and directed by Prashant Sareen, the play staged on day-10 of the ongoing Annual Theatre Festival, was based on the love story of a young Jew boy and Catholic girl who are unable to bridge the religious divide, especially the strong opposition of boy’s mother. Their failure to come together at the physical plain leaves them the only option of meeting in the spiritual realm.
Designed by Urja Singh’s, the stylized costumes, flowing robes, miniskirts, tight jeans-looking freshly taken out from the closet of a fashion designer-worn by actors in the name of characters being Europeans, along with set design with notable features like central high platform clothed in black and white patterns, high flowing white drapes-did succeed in creating the feel of kind of grandeur befitting the bungalow of hero’s mother.
In quite a few scenes the Jew boy (Prashant Sareen) and Catholic girl (Mushkan Rajput) successfully created the emotional intensity of both love and separation. The sequence in which the son reminds mother (Rabia Khajuria) that her opposition to his alliance with the Catholic girl is only to avenge the wrong done to her by his fiancé who had failed to be present at the designated time of their wedding-was also very well enacted by the duo.
But in a bid to create a bold and spectacular show, the play design with elements drawn from the repertoire of bold modern dance sequences, some bordering on the obscene, actors’ swaggering with catwalk movements, and incessant and loud background score (Ankit Sharma) -with young in the audience howling and whistling-made to look as if one was watching a pop show: A total contrast to theatre culture of winter capital. Other members of the cast who gave good performance were Abid, Vaishali Lalotra, Rishab Mahajan, Vitasta Singh, Bhanu Sudan, Pradeep Bhagat, Komal Rampal, Vasbi Chnadan, Muskan and Mohni. Choreography by Gautam Thakur and Jerry Singh. Make-up was by Neelam Kalyan.
Tomorrow, Doosra Adami Doosri Aurat will be staged by The Kalakar’s.

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