The name of Motley tagged with a play primes us to expect an experience above the ordinary. So it was with A Walk In The Woods, an adaptation of a 1988 play by Lee Blessing. The original is about two arms negotiators, one Russian and one American, who develop a friendship of sorts during a year of peace talks in Switzerland. Motley’s version makes it about two diplomats, one Pakistani and one Indian, in the same spot – both geographically and figuratively.
You know these words. They come up in your conversations. They accost you in print. They form a well-used part of your active vocabulary.
And yet, do you really know these old familiars as well as you think you do?
For these ordinary words have a theatrical side, one they reveal only to the keen.
Cheating is not always a vile act; in theatre, it can be a gesture of inclusion.
When you hear of a children’s play titled Mullah Nasruddin, you imagine an enactment of stories featuring the mythical Mullah. Centuries-old, widely-circulated stories, familiar like old friends. You expect from the show some midly amusing folksy drama that would, if things go well, entertain you without surprising you.
Let the “2.0” in the title serve as warning. Ranga Shankara’s Mullah Nasruddin 2.0 is not that play.
[Poems and stories of top grade
By James Thurber and Vikram Seth,
Read aloud by three Shahs, one Desai
At Jagriti. 2017, the first weekend of July.
With no fancy props of light or decor,
The text and voice engaged Bangalore.
A review – for better or worse –
Written in AABB verse.]
I walked in to watch Oleanna at Jagriti, Bangalore knowing little about the script – which was just as well. The surprise and slow-mounting tension of this play is probably more powerful without prior familiarity. [If you haven’t watched the play yet, I’d say watch and then return to read further.]
The city of Yogyakarta (Indonesia) is home to Prambanan, one of the largest Hindu temple sites in Southeast Asia.
The star attraction of Prambanan is the Ramayana ballet, performed open-air* at night with the richly lit temples in its backdrop.
