17 August - Ahmednagar College, SP College Pune, VPCOE Baramati

Disclaimer :           ही संपूर्णपणे माझी वैयक्तिक मते आहेत. नाटकातल्या कलाकारांची आणि प्रेक्षकांची

                                      मते माझ्यापेक्षा खूप वेगळी असू शकतात. माझी समीक्षणात काही चूक झाल्यास कृपया 

                                      निदर्शनास आणून द्यावी. नाटकांवर चर्चा होणे अपेक्षित आहे - वाद नाही.
                                धन्यवाद ! 

        

            1)    Ahmednagar College – Merit

      Writer :   Mahesh Kale        Director : Imaran Sheikh

One line comment : The most genuine play in today’s session. Performers were clear about what they 

                                 wanted to convey.

Characters : Rahul, Vijay( Rahul’s friend ) , Aii & Baba

Subject : Pressures imparted by the parents on their children while selecting their career path.

Story : Rahul – an ordinary boy wants to study Marathi Literature. He is very passionate about the Marathi sahitya and poetry. But his father wants him to become an engineer. He scores badly in the entrance exam. His father gets very angry about his failure in getting good marks in CET. Mother on the other hand tries to support her son on one level but fails to do so when the father consider her as the culprit for his failure. Rahul decides to end his life, but while doing so his friend Vijay suddenly enters his room and stops him. Rahul talks to Vijay about his brooding. While sharing everything with Vijay – Rahul’s parents hear everything and they realize their mistake. Finally they decide to allow Rahul to pursue his career path. 

Script : Ordinary. In the second half of the play – all the characters talk so idealistic drifting the soul of the characters away from the reality and their very existence. 

Direction : Ordinary.

Acting : Rahul and his mother were acting fair enough. The father wasn’t looking as a father. Vijay – can improve a lot like the father. Total lack of proper guidance could be easily figured out.  Aii was speaking shuddha Marathi – while baba & Vijay was speaking  khedival marathi. Rahul sometimes spoke shuddha – sometimes khedival. That’s the reason as an audience we can’t figure out from which background or strata of society this family is coming from.  

Set : Ordinary. 

Lights : Can be improved a lot. Light operation was a disaster. 

Music : All background scores. But the music operation was really amazing – very smooth.

वाक्ये :
१) ज्यांना मार्क्स मिळत नाहीत त्यांना आपला स्वतःचं career निवडायचा , स्वतःच्या मनाप्रमाणे जगायचा काय अधिकारच नाही ?
२) ( सुंदर  वाक्य ) शहाण्यांनी पैसे मिळवण्यासाठी केलेला वेडेपणा म्हणजे career का ?  

Things that can be improved :

1)      The play starts with Ramraksha cassette. Rahul changes this cassette and plays Bhaag bhaag DK Bose. The cultural conflict portrayed between these two songs is not the one present in the play.

2)      Very easy escape for the protagonist – meaning – his parents listen to his monologue and they get convinced.

3)      Acting, direction, script – everything has to be improved.

4)      Considering that this was their first ever attempt at Purushottam – we should appreciate that their attempt was really genuine. They should see lots of plays in near future and take a good guidance from someone. 

Overall Rating : 5

     

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2) SP College – I Got Seat ! 

Subjects :  Ideological identity loss !  

Characters : Shrimant, Pant & others. 

Story : According to me – this is a story of a very ordinary college going boy – lost in coping up with his own ideologies and the reality around him. The play starts off with the bang through traditional Nandi - श्रीगणराय नर्तन करी - आम्ही पुण्याचे बामणहरी ! Shrimant gives a speech in the beginning. He wants revolution(????). For that – he has a plan in his mind about how to bring a revolution. He manages to give the new comers admissions in his college. He offers them this so called help – expecting their support for his so called movement ( ???? ) ! Eventually he doesn’t get anyone’s support. He gets frustrated. Finally he loses his mental equilibrium. The end is exactly like the one which we have seen in “ Geli 21 Varshe “ . The end composition at the corner of the stage seems like an output of very wrong notion about foreign settled people with high salaries and AC offices. 

Script : Very vague. Confusion about what the writer wants to say. 

Direction :  Vague. 

Acting : Not bad – in the sense one could easily figure it out that with the same set of actors one can direct a very good play. All actors were good – but the basic structure was so vague that their acting couldn’t be appreciated. 

Set : A well thought set. The disorganized garbage kind of image of the Sanskrutik Mandal – was going in line with the theme. Properties like hockey stick, use of red color ( which according to me symbolically represents communist ideology about revolution ) , rope were used. This same left side was used as Shrimant’s room – again very disorganized. At end viewers can see the quote : “ Revolution is to either triumph or die. It’s better to die than standing on knees “ ( please correct me if I am wrong ). The right had side was used as the college campus, bar etc. I can say – properties , levels were used in right places. 

Backstage – The set movements were a disaster. 

Lights : Good. But the sudden insertion of red spot was unnecessary. 

Music : Gulaal songs, background scores were good. Nandi was decent. All in all – not ordinary. 

Comments :

1)      Dis-continuous use of the FORM of the play. It started off with Nandi – the Sutradhaar came in between and then he was just vanished.

2)      Vagueness in theme, characterization.

3)      Wrong notions about going abroad – having a good paying job in foreign countries.

4)      Exactly which stream of education is the protagonist following? Arts ? Science ? Commerce ?

The protagonist’s socio-political and family background doesn’t get revealed.

5)      विशविशीत बांधणी - नाटक कुठल्याच मुद्द्यावर धरलं नाही.

6)      झाली झाली हो क्रांतीची घाई हे गाणं सूत्रधाराच्या मागचे विद्यार्थी गाणे - मला तरी conceptually चुकीचे वाटले.

7)      शाश्वत म्हणजे authentic ????? माझ्या मते authentic म्हणजे सत्य म्हणून ज्ञात असलेले किंवा अस्सल किंवा अधिप्रमाणित !

Things to be improved : Script – Direction – characterization – theme.

Overall Rating : 5.5

  

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     VPCOE – Cross-word

     Writer   :  Vikram      Director : Priyanka

     Characters : Madhura & Abhijeet

     Subject : Finding out the idealistic median of two different ideologies.

      Story : Madhura and Abhijeet are having a discussion on one of the play that they are going to create in near future.  They have a debate about the characterization of one of the character called – Nasir. According to Madhura – Nasir doesn’t have to be an extremist in expressing his anger over the current riots. Whereas, Abhijeet  thinks that – that’s the only way left for Nasir to overcome the current situation. The play intermittently goes into improvisation mode and actual real mode of actions. At one point Abhijeet gets very angry about Madhura’s adamant nature. He asks her to write a script for him – but she refuses to do so because she is not convinced about Nasir’s character. She thinks that it is against her ideological base. Abhijeet then takes his revenge ( at least that is what it seems ) on Madhura – by telling her one more theme for their new play. Supposedly – the particular theme coincides with Madhura’s person experience. Madhura becomes so angry here that she slaps Abhijeet for constantly torturing her mentally over her own story. Finally both sit together in the balcony discussing the theme for their new play. They conclude that – various ideologies should complement each other for the betterment of the human being as in whole.  The socio-political references come and go in between their debate. For e.g.  Mahatma Gandhi, Hitler etc.  

      Script : घडणं कमी - idealistic जास्त !  

      Direction : Merging of improvisational sequences with actual real things happening was done well to a some extent. No possibilities left out for the audience to deal with their interpretations.

      Acting : Madhura acted well but her voice level was so less that we couldn’t hear what she was saying. Abhijeet needs to improve a lot. He doesn’t have proper diction and clarity in his dialog delivery. कित्येक वेळा तो इतक्या मोठ्या आवाजात ओरडतो कि प्रेक्षक अक्षरशः विनाकारणच दचकतात. एकंदरीत दोघांच्या अभिनय सादरीकरणात जमीन अस्मानाचा फरक पडत जातो जो नंतर आत्यंतिक त्रासदायक व शिक्षा केल्यासारखा वाटायला लागतो ! मधूनच इंग्रजी वाक्यांचा वापर विनाकारण केलाय. कदाचित मधुरा ती वाक्ये अत्यंत monotonous पद्धतीने घेत असेल तसे वाटत असेल !  एका ठिकाणी मधुरा अत्यंत चुकीचे हिंदी वापरते असे मला वाटले. मधुरा म्हणते - " ये क्रूर लढाई करके तुम .......... "  क्रूर लढाई करके ????? माझ्या मते हे चुकीचे आहे. कदाचित वाक्य बरोबर असेल पण उच्चारण चुकले असेल. 

    

     Set : According to me the set was carefully designed but its use was minimal. Following are my observations :

1)   The set contained a typical upper middle class well furnished house structure . It looked very attractive.

2)   The most interesting part of the set was use of various properties and the colour scheme. The bed-sheet colour was green one on which the majority part of the discussion was carried out – and the main topic being discussed was – Hindu-Muslim riots. This bed was constantly used by Abhijeet which supported Nasir’s extremist behaviour which was in line with the theme.  There was a laptop on the bed which could easily bring out the economical strata from which these two characters were coming.

3)   At the centre – there was a chess-board kept of the dice. The game was a middle game – not the initial openings or the end game – as one could easily figure out from the positioning of the pieces on the board. This was the most interesting structure. According to me – it depicted that – ‘we as common people are just the pieces on the chess board. The actual player is different. The image of dice below the chess-board portrayed something like : हा सगळा political turbulence - घडवून आणणारे लोक वेगळेच आहेत. ते अक्षरशः एखादा द्यूत खेळावं तसा हा सगळा खेळ खेळत आहेत.  

4)   सर्वात मागे - अत्यंत rich असा antique phone आणि इतर वस्तू का ठेवल्या होत्या ते मात्र कळला नाही. एकंदरीत नेपथ्य दिसायला आकर्षक होते

मात्र नाटकाच्या अर्थसंगतीनुसार फारसे अनुरूप होते असे मात्र नाही !  डाव्या बाजूची gallery सदृश मांडणी सुरुवातीच्या अख्ख्या ८०% नाटकभर वापरली गेली नाही.

5)   The blackout in between took almost 1.5 to 2 minutes for set change which according to me is a complete blunder.

6)   Last but not the least – Abhijeet moves the king on the chess-board all 8 squares to kill the opponent’s King ???? This is a huge mistake. If you are going to use chess-board and its pieces – you have to have thorough technical use of it. In chess – the King of the opponent is never killed – the king is always forced not to move. The position is called Checkmate.

          Lights :

1)    Use of green light in improvisation sequence to portray Nasir’s emotional turbulence.

2)    Light operation sometimes was very abrupt and sudden. It wasn’t smooth.

         Costumes :

1)    The characters of Madhura and Abhijeet were carefully portrayed through their costumes. Abhijeet was wearing dark green coloured T-shirt while Madhura was wearing white salwar with faint pink/maroon/brown coloured kurta.

2)    Use of odhani was innovative. It suited on Madhura as well as on Salma in improvisational sequence.

      Music : Very very very very very very vey LOUD ! One couldn’t hear the dialogs at all.

    

        Overall Rating : 5.0 / 10