Behind The Scenes

The stream of drama being a challenging, unforgiving and struggle-demanding one, all of us inspired spectators are more than keen to applaud and encourage a play which ventures smoothly and steadily into these tough waters. And so has the play ‘पडद्यामागचा’, which has now completed ten successful performances and won two competitions.

This play was dramatized by the cultural group of the Fergusson College specifically for the Vinodottam Cup, a competition designed to honour the dramas capable of tickling the funny bones of everyone in the audience. It set sail with a bang : it won first place. Since then it has found itself in mentionable positions in a few other contests as well, if not winning them too.

Anyone on either side of the theatre can surely appreciate how vital the wings of a stage are and how significant the things which go on in there. We as spectators always see only a part of everything which happens on the ‘other side’, that too being the part they want us to see. The dark legs of both the wings exist solely to hide from us the happenings offstage, be they a set of coordinated actions or complete pandemonium. Everything except the live acts are concealed from us, including the concealment itself.

On the face of all that, this exceptional piece of art provides a brilliant insight into the part which we cannot see. It features a makeshift stage placed on the main stage and between a couple of wings which can be seen perfectly as well. The actors perform their version of the Ramayana on that stage, while the director, script-writer, prompter and assorted stagehands all skipping about exasperatedly as the actors on the makeshift stage remain blissfully unaware. पडद्यामागचा is the tale of a frightful fiasco which everyone tries to avoid but end up adding to.

At the bell, the opening curtains present to us two groups, apparently finalists in a drama competition, where one of them looks thoroughly disgruntled and the other one is gloating. Following a battle of wits between the irate scriptwriter and the incensed director, we follow the unfortunate team into memorium as they re-enact their whole cock-up. Then we are treated to an hour of increasing resentment and rising tempers on both the stages, which is hilarious in its entirety. Finally, after impressing upon us the impossibility of the unsuccessful adaptation of the Ramayana having any chance ahead, the main play पडद्यामागचा ends with magnificent irony.

There are some who’d say that the irony was a little too magnificent, and not because they won but because the colossal blunder depicted by the team seems a tad exaggerated, as there have never been so many holes, as abysses, in a seemingly professional play. We find the pretence that the director, who gets so worked up throughout the performance, would choose such a team for such a play, a bit inflated and unreal. What is possibly harder to believe is how the actors onstage in the Ramayana continue to remain so charmingly unaware of the massive hole they dig, and in a couple of instances even try to mess things further out of pure spite towards the headless chicken of a director. It presents a beautiful farce, but the lack of seriousness makes one wonder. Furthermore, this play finally winning the trophy is a good ‘damn you’ to the gloating opponent, but it would be all too bad if someone gets hold of the wrong end of the stick and thinks that it suggests impropriety on top of incompetence.

However, there are a number of ways in which this drama is at significant difference from a few of the plays which were in the running for the Vinodottam Cup. We are accustomed to finding humour in many places in our daily lives, and the other plays tended to bend towards the type we find in the skits in comedy act shows.The humour in them mostly consisted of amateurish puns, insulting comedy and the likes. This one, on the other hand, is capable of generating pure, spontaneous laughter throughout the performance in a way that makes us feel that it was not crafted as a comic play but is refreshingly satisfying on that score as well. In other words, hilarity just pops up as another aspect of its multi-faceted personality, rather than appearing as a centerpiece.

Another key to the success of this play is that because it openly displays all the errors on and off their own stage freely, any actual mishap occurring by chance is readily accepted by the audience as an addition to the cock-up and thus it only enhances the all-round performance. Ultimately, you are giving us a big blunder, so every little blunder is obviously acceptable. And this has shown in a couple of its performances where unfortunate mishaps such as a coloured light filter catching fire and the curtains closing way too early. This talented team, now armed with experience, accepts every such hinderance with good grace and ploughs on. It deserves the elusive standing ovation. Credit goes to directors Rugved Soman and Omkar Kamble. The notable performances of all actors notwithstanding, Amogh Vaidya as the condescending Lord Rama and Ojas Marathe as the irate director are our honourable mentions. With a beautiful tale to tell and wonderful people to present it, this new comedy of errors is set to win many more hearts and we all hope that its run of success continues.