Sir Sir Sarla

Saw this play about a week back when I was treated to it by my sister. Saw with family at Bal Gandharva.

The play starts off with the introduction of the cast by Makrand Desphande who plays the protagonist professor. There's Aahana Kumra who plays the female lead, Sarla and Sanjay Dadhich who I believe was the true star of the play. He played Phanidhar, a disaffected student. There is a recitation of names of actors how were a part of it when it debuted back in 2001. Names like Sonali Kulkarni and Anurag Kashyap were evoked. But the play did not live upto the hype it created in the mind.

As I had mentioned in my review for Tumbaad, modern shows and serials have reduced our attention span. Yet if I can sit through a repeat of Dil Chahata Hai or Lagaan, or even a good T20 match; then I believe I have some stamina. This play tested it. In the interval, I overhead people who said they slept for a part of the first half! There is enough suspense built up to not put you to sleep ideally.

I might not understand Hindi that well, but I do a bit. Even if I may not have understood the meaning of certain words in the poetry recited, the others failed to make an emotional impact upon me as had promised.

I don't remember the exact moment, but there was a dialogue which the actress does regarding her plight as a woman who is being forced to make choices she doesn't want with regards to 'belonging' to men who 'claimed' her (the dialogue was by Phanidhar). This was meant to be a poignant and sad moment. But the audience laughed instead. That was disturbing.

I will give out a special shout-out to Sanjay Dadhich who played his exhaustive part brilliantly, without letting go of character consistency in terms of acting. He was the one who held the play together with his love-hate relationship.

The actress is fine (apparently she is from Lipstick Under My Burkha). And the special long appearance of another character is fine too.

The end was long and winding and could have been shortened. By a good 15 minutes (the end only). The audio choice and play, as well as the on-stage mikes, were a fail. There is a lot of poetry involved and even if you try to pay attention, words were eaten. At places there is random choice of jarring music played.

Strange disco lighting happens to show passage of time at the end. Ugach.

Set is as necessitated, which is cool.

Surprisingly, the venue was problematic too. There was a person talking in the light box which made Mr. Deshpande stop the play. Also, there was a persistent static emitting from the right hand side of the audio system which was very very distracting.

I had a discussion with a couple of school juniors (whom I am proud to say are not engineers but film students). After gauging my reaction, an honest word popped out: mediocre. Something not expected from Makrand Desphande. Perhaps it was just this show, and an exception among many. But for me, it was my only. I would not disagree with someone form the field of arts then.

Rating: Would have given 1, but Sanjay Dadhich's acting grows it to 2 Beards/5.