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Starring : |
Radhika Apte, Sagar Deshmukh.
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American playwright Bradley Hayward’s romantic comedy, LEGITIMATE HOOEY is adapted in Marathi as MATRA RATRA by Sagar Deshmukh. The play has been produced by Aasakta, a Pune based theatre group. After what seemed an unending search for a home, Neel and Anju have finally landed into one-and that too out of Mumbai- and now they are set to love each other violently and ostentatiously; there emerges in their bedroom, night after night, a love story, short and sweet, as they themselves call it.
However the love story is not without grunts and groans. Trifle and trivial matters make them grouchy time and again, night after night. But then it’s just a matter of a few moments before both of them return to the “I love you” keynote rather desperately! As one views the play, it appears that the ‘copy and paste’ method could unfold a love story in any other bedroom as well. Mohit Takalkar, the director of the play, intends to suggest the same thing perhaps. He has Neel and Anju’s bedroom hugely projected on the back wall of the stage. But then one wonders if in the first place the device is necessary and if it really gels with the jovial spirit of the play.
Apart from a few reservations about Radhika Apte’s (Anju) voice, the pitch in particular, both she and Sagar Deshmukh (Neel) were quite convincing, in that, they worked- out the physical proximity uninhibitedly, which was an imperative. They did not allow the bedroom scenes to look cheap and sensational. The director too deserves compliments.
Mohit preferred to have only a big bed as the mise- en- scene for the play. It must have been pretty interesting for him to find out innumerable postures and movements in the space that seemed a bit too cramped. But for the skillful blocking, the performance could have turned monotonous for sure. The soft lighting however was in tune with the overall mood of the play.
Quite a few young viewers at the performance in Pune went into gales of laughter right from the beginning, leaving the others rather nonplussed. Usually it takes time for viewers to catch up with the style and the spirit of the play. Such an over enthusiastic outburst could be misleading. The play was not as hilarious as its young viewers suggested.
The parallel theatre at the Su-darshan in Pune is in full swing these days. The plays- TALEBAND, PAANI, CHARU, AARO ITYADI, MAHAPUR, TU and now MATRA RATRA are played regularly there, thanks to the pretty large number of young viewers who attend these shows. By the way, would Mohan Joshi and company sitting at the Natya Sankul vacate it and make room for these young theatre people please?
*The above review is based on a performance at the Sudarshan Hall in Pune. MATRA RATRA has however premiered in Mumbai too. Madhav Vaze is a senior theatre person based in Pune. He has been writing a regular column on the theatre for the past 15 years in the weekly magazine, ‘Saptahik Sakal’. Amongst his other qualifications and experience, he is founder member of ‘Jagar’, a parallel theatre company and is visiting faculty to theatre departments in Pune and in Goa.
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