The mention of Mahatma Gandhi invokes various emotions, some agree with him, some despise him. Most of us are either indifferent or tend to believe that his principle were noble, but no longer applicable in the contemporary discourse.
Second day of the theatre festival witnessed a courtroom drama, Hatya Ek Aakaar Ki, a play written by Lalit Sehgal. Four right leaning youngsters discuss the assassination of Gandhi where one them is a little unsure if that is the right way of dissenting against him. After a discussion, they decide to hold a mock trial of Mahatma Gandhi. This exercise which starts as a joke for the other three, becomes more than a game for the fourth youngster. He reads Gandhi’s works and his autobiography to prepare for the trial.
During the process of this trial, the fourth youngster starts to appreciate Gandhi’s principles and his implementation and starts to defend it ferociously. This leads to a tussle between the four of them who had pre-judged the case and were just playing along to humour their friend.
This performance piece by IPTA Raigarh was a hybrid between a play and a script reading and was the first such attempt. The fourth youngster, played by Surendra Rana, stands out as Gandhi and his advocate and Judge, played by Shyam Devkar, punctuates the intense situation with some humour. However this attempt needs a lot more practice to make it more impactful. The original script of the play is full of metaphors and indirect references to actual events, which needs to be hinted at while performing, as it becomes difficult to follow the chronology at times. Hoping a lot more work is done to polish the performances and the mise-en-scene of the play to aid its powerful dialogues.
