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Tag Archives: Play Review
Checkmate – Rangashankara
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I went to watch this play for the sole reason being – it was a thriller/suspence play. Been sometime since I opted for anything but comedy. The story in brief is like this: There is a couple who plan in detail to cheat the law and become rich, by ( perhaps very common in the stories) cheating the insurance company. There is an inspector who sees through their plot and tries to take advantage of the situation. And then there is a final twist.
The set and lighting arrangements were detailed and good. The performances were okay but for one or two scenes in which they manage to excel. I could never approve of the third person’s acting – probably it was meant to be like that ! The lady often said wrong numbers – like she mentioned 8 months since marriage once and next time 6 months and like 50 thousand for 50 lakh – when the audience loudly murmured in a way of correcting her that it was Lakhs and not thousands. Lack of preparation or nervousness might have caused which was strange because she did some scenes convincingly – the one where she explains her interview with Inspector.
The final “twists” have become quite predictable nowadays and I always look for the inconsistency it causes with the whole previous happenings. And whenever I find some I disprove/dislike the final twists. In particular in this play, if the final twist was true, many things looked like redundant. ( There is a small justification though - the entire play was played out for the third person – I know this is not explaining correctly, but those who’d seen would get it).
The play is originally of Marathi by Yogesh Soman, translated to Hindi by Prashant Kirwadkar , which is translated to Kannada by Dr Tippeswamy. Directed by Anoop Joshi and the group was Rangayana.
Rangashankara – Neenaanaadrenaaneenena
# This is a play of classic story of mistaken identities. There are two pairs of twins and they mix up.
# Good name of the play!
# In brief – 1.1 (one set’s one of the twins) and 2.1 are initially friends. They come to a city which also had was inhabited by 1.2 and 2.2 who had run away from their houses many years ago. In the event they mix up and 1.1 confuses 2.2 to be 2.1. And so on.
# It is sometimes surprising to note how many plays pay a remote tribute to Shakespeare. This too is one of them “Comedy of Errors” and a tribute to Shakespeare was announced before the start.
# The title and the poster – which lists the cast like this Sihi Kahi Chandru, Sihi Kahi Chandru, Srinivas Prabhu, Srinivas Prabhu - is a small give-away which I noted randomly while standing in the queue outside.
# Few minutes into play, it’s too evident – Ulta pulta the famous Kannada feature film starring Ramesh and terrific Kashi. And Ulta pulta itself was inspired by an old Hindi movie.
# This Ulta-pulta kept coming back to mind, and the mind compares – even if I tell it not to! And as usual, comparison spoils it, sometimes. I am convinced, seen independently, this play is quite good.
# Comedy play it was and had good moments. Like
- 1.1 is a novel-worm – that too a fan of investigative novels. He cooked up various imaginative names of the novels and I almost cracked up every time.
- There is a sub-plot which explains these two guys running away from home. Since this was relatively new, was quite funny !
- Sihi Kahi Chandru whom I have become a good fan after his terrific performance in Sankramana. His role is not as full-fledged as it is in Sankramana but he is as good as possible. [ However Kashi was superlative ]. Also Chandru impresses in timing and delivery of dialogues.
- Srinivas Prabhu’s facial expressions were note worthy.
- Last mad run of mayhem seemed a bit longer – it continued even after we stopped laughing !
# Verdict: If you have not seen Ulta-Pulta, watch and enjoy. If you have, check out some other play from the same team – for eg Sankramana.
# My previous reviews of plays seen in RS could be found here.
Rangashankara – Maduve Maduve
This is a musical play using quite heavily the poems of “prema kavi” B R Lakshmana Rao to the music of C R Ashwath.
One part of the story is oft-repeated love story – the birth of the story, a third angle which was actually a misunderstanding, happy ending – in marriage. If there was any freshness it should be attributed to the natural performance of the lead pair. The story is intercepted with songs and dances – typical of a feature film – probably a reason story stretched with not much happening otherwise.
Second part is about the love leaving the couple after marriage and the minor fights that happen – probably due to lack of co-operation and the need to adjust. The fights lead to the point of separation but they realize and make up.
In between there are lots of digs about many social issues and many were cliched or already-heard-of.
C R Simha was quite jovial considering his age. He mimics a famous swamiji and his blessings is reserved for lovers 
Except for the lead pair – who gave natural good performance and a loud Ritwik Simha, others were passable. The other girls looked very happy and seemed to enjoy their role thoroughly. Sometimes it was little over-acting but better than average lazy acts by the boys. They looked out of place at times and looked inflexible.
Of course it is not possible to get Ashwath to sing for every show, but this recorded music was a huge put-off for me, given that I have enjoyed the plays for their direct interaction which includes the music playing at the side stage. Recorded music’s quality was also not good.
Overall, though touted as comical drama, did not make the audience laugh many times (unlike the ones where I really laughed till it ached). Probably also because it all looked either repetitive or cliched. But it did manage to make us smile few times – few dialogues and mannerisms by lead pair – and several messages were put across quite fine.