Thespian en is back with the eighth edition of The Journey, a compilation of mono-acts, performed by renowned theatre artiste Ajit Chitturi. The performance kicks off the group’s 30th anniversary this year.
The Journey is adapted from the major plays staged by Thespian En through their inception in 1994. Performed earlier in Chennai, Bengaluru, New Delhi, Coimbatore and Coonoor between December ’18 and March ’22, all the pieces have been adapted, designed and performed seamlessly with subtle costume changes. From Timeri Murari, Chetan Shah, Sreekumar Varma to Shakespeare, Sartre and Camus, it’s going to be an all-in-one evening. Condensed from famous works of these playwrights The Journey is a solo performance of the essence of seven different plays adapted into mono-acts. The works featured are taken from Macbeth, Belle Curv, Nekrassov, Five, Kean, Hey, Hero! and Caligula.
The one hour 15 minutes performance includes the following mono-acts.
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Macbeth is caught between his loyalties to his king Duncan and his wife Lady Macbeth’s overbearing ambition to rule the kingdom. Macbeth is caught in a dilemma but finally concedes to his wife’s desires. This piece comprises of Macbeth’s dilemma, his resolution to murder king Duncan, the supernatural influences his motivation, the murder, and finally his guilt-ridden psyche that condemns him.
Chetan Shah’s Belle Curv
The only play that dwells on an overwhelming romance that’s interconnected to cricket’s match fixing scandal. The play has a fictitious storyline on a former cricketer who now is a betting and match fixing don, his moll and a software whiz kid specialising in pointing out the probabilities of the way the game is heading to. This piece focuses on the Don’s perspective on how and where fixing and betting initially entered the game and the history of match fixing up to the point the game is cleaned up. He also narrates how the bookies trapped the players into the deal and the way their industry evolved over the years.
Jean Paul Sartre’s Nekrassov
Probably the lightest of Sartre’s plays, it shows the working of the French Government newspaper Soir a Paris towards the end of the Cold War. Georges de Valera — the world’s greatest swindler — a 100 crimes but not a single conviction, the darling of the French commoner is about to get caught by the authorities. This is when he hears the rumour that the Soviet Interior minister Nekrassov has broken the ‘Iron curtain’ and has escaped into Europe. Georges, in order to escape the law, now poses as Nekrasov and introduces himself to the editor of Soir a Paris — the French National newspaper as the Soviet interior Minister.
SreekumarVarma’s Five
A political thriller, Five is a story about power in the highest echelons of the country — the Indian Parliament. Iqbal, the King maker has different designs to change the norms of the Indian constitution by raising a puppet to the post of the Prime-Minister. Not just for power, but to see that his ambitions live on even after himself.
Jean Paul Sartre’s Kean
First written by Alexandre Dumas and rewritten almost 100 years later by Sartre, the play is about the life of the greatest actor of the world during the latter 1700’s and early 1800’s — Edmund Kean. In this mono, Kean describes how all the fame and glamour of an actor has its fall side. Ranging from the society not accepting him as their equal, actors are looked down by all despite his popularity and fame and true love is never an actor’s reality.
Timeri N Murari’s Hey, Hero!
Written by the exceptional Timeri Murari, Hey, Hero! is adapted from a true incident of gang fights that the author had followed in the UK. Adapting it to a local Chennai slum, the play dwells on how difficult it is for a person to shed the image he has created of himself in other’s minds. Arjun, the local slum’s dadha has an experience while in prison that makes him rethink about who he really is. Once free, he doesn’t want to go back to his violent and bloody ways. But will the people who know him accept his new ways? In this act, Arjun describes to his brother what really happened to him in prison and the cause for him to mend his ways.
Albert Camus’ Caligula
Caligula is the play about the psyche of the Roman Emperor who is on a path of destroying everything around himself, after his beloved sister Drusilla’s death, not realising that one cannot destroy everything without destroying oneself. Written by Nobel laureate Albert Camus, this play deals as closest possible with the ‘Mad’ Emperor’s psyche. This piece portrays how the Emperor on trying to equal the God’s on power sets new set of rules for his subjects and follows it to its conclusion with the aid of his logic. He craves to possess the ‘moon’ which he feels will equal him to the divine so much so that he sets out to capture it. His scorn for all things human makes him a much-hated man. He even pardons the ringleader of the assassination plot on him thinking that once the moon is in his hands, he will become a God and then will deal with the plotters.
Open to all.
February 2 & 4, 7 pm.
At Alliance Française of Pondicherry.
Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
X: @rupsjain
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