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METROSCAPE
Theatre
Of The Abused
I can be a little girl once again. Not again,
but for the first time." Whispered words that echo across the hall
from a crouched Mala wrapped in an indescribable, fragile strength. Sometimes
the temptress, often the victim, occasionally overcome by shrewish temper,
Nandana Sen as Mala, a victim of child abuse in Mahesh Dattani's 30 Days
in September is always engaging.
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| SURVIVAL PLAY: (From right) Jariwala, Dubey,
Sen and Sengupta |
The 90-minute play commissioned by Rahi, a Delhi-based
support group for adult victims of sexual abuse and incest, opened to
packed-houses this weekend at Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. Directed by Lilette
Dubey the performance materialised after extensive research, workshops
and meetings with survivors and portrays two ends of the spectrum: Mala
who uses sex for acceptance within her social circle and her mother who
is branded as a "frozen women". The pain of their tumultuous
relationship is accentuated by the surreal minimalism of the blue sets
by Bhola Sharma and the intermittent chants of Mai re by Ila Arun. The
cast included Darshan Jariwala as the uncle and Joy Sengupta as Mala's
beloved.
After several uninspiring film roles in Gautam
Ghosh's Gudia and Hunt Hoe's Seducing Maarya, among others, theatre has
proved a great challenge for Nandana who says she was "deeply moved
by the subject".
And it seems to have a similar effect on audience
members too dispelling Dubey's reservations about the success of a "serious
play". She has now agreed to travel with it to other cities in India
and the UK with the justification that "the issues that plague us
remain the same".
-Himanshi
Dhawan
Mixed-Up Melodies
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| SMALL IS TO SAVOUR: Colonial Cousins in Bangalore |
An event management jumble led Colonial Cousins,
the Mumbai-based crooners Hariharan and Leslie Lewis, to Megabowl instead
of the Bangalore Palace Grounds on June 1. That didn't ruffle them: they
were in top form with songs from their latest album Aatma ("a mix
of ethnic Indian sounds blended with funk, jazz, rock and rock 'n' roll
"), and older hits like Krishna ni begane baaro and the Marathi kai
zhala from their first epynomous album. "We are not just two musicians,
we are two souls," gushed Lezz. People who had dropped in for a bowling
game and were pleasantly surprised by the unexpected live jamboree. Any
way the band is known to get along better with smaller crowds.
-Stephen
David
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