Can you collapse the infinite into two hours? Well actor-danseuse Sobhana tries hard to do just that in her musical Krishnaa.
The result is this hi-octane, mostly chaotic ensemble
performance that seems to move at the speed of light; and even before you absorb a
scene, a dialogue or enjoy the thrill of a dance, its already over and the
stage has shifted to the next story on Lord Krishna.
Err… why is this then making to my favourites? Well, let me first complete the reality
bites part about the show.
I saw Krishnaa last winter when Shobana and her dance troupe performed at the Sophiya college in Mumbai. This
was a Sunday, and the sparse crowd who sacrificed a Sunday evening to trudge
all the way to South Mumbai, included the obvious South Indians as well as a
few Gujaratis (to see their beloved Thakurji on stage) but none of the parsis or
punjabis who are regulars at English and Hindi plays in Mumbai.
And in a way that was helpful, because if you are not
familiar with the mythology, legends and folklore, it is impossible to know
what is going on – the narrative moves across various chapters of Lord Krishna
– childhood, lover, adjudicator, warrior etc. sometimes non-sequentially. The
story also veers off-course from the popular conventional story when it
suggests Draupadi wanted to in fact first marry Lord Krishna (Sobhana quotes a reliable
source for justifying this).
As the show began, it was clear Sobhana is in charge… only
this means she does EVERYTHING as in EVERYTHING – including back stage monitoring,
changing the scenes, getting staff to help organize transitions – she even
stands on the sidelines away from view, and stands on a small step ladder to
handover the endless saree in the Draupadi disrobing scene!!. So you get to hear her instructions from time
to time asking them to switch on the sounds, lights etc. And, for a south
Indian, it is but expected that she ran the entire show – music, narrative,
scene changes etc. played out of a video file from her laptop connected to the
projector – however, what was ironic
and disappointing was that the laptop
was not connected to power, and 30 minutes into the show, the screen is
flashing that the PC is out of battery power and needs an alternate source of
power, or to be plugged in. The actors
are dancing around unaware of this flashing on the screen behind them. Soon, the music stops and the screen is
blank. The dancers move to the corner, and one can here sobhana berating the
guys, and then makes an announcement that there will be a short break. She’d
earlier asked folks on the balcony (who cant anyway read most of the screen as
the visibility from Sophiya’s balcony only covers the front stage) to come down
as there are plenty of seats below that are empty. So I moved down.
By the time the power is plugged in, the laptop booted, the file located, and opened, and bring it back to approximately where it had stopped – mercifully this is done off=screen, a lot of folks decide to salvage the rest of their Sunday evening and head out for their cars and dinner or whatever.
No, so really why is this making it to my faves?
I come down to like the second row and get a close ringside
view of not just the scintillating performance but also what’s happening on the
sidelines during the show – its pure entertainment, in a very very very very…
different way that Indians normally are used to in the current age.
Sobhana is a face extremely familiar and popular to folks of
my generation, but mostly unknown to the current, and practically unknown to
those outside the south, any age.
But in my opinion, and I think a lot of folks would concur –
she’s possibly one of the most beautiful actresses ever (which really is a
compliment given that every Indian actress is stunning – I keep getting asked
by different folks, from Africa, to Dubai and to Thailand, how come each Indian
actress is so glamorous and beautiful. Clearly when it came to beauty a majority of the world preferred
the healthy, buxom, and exquisiteness of the Indian actresses).
Sobhana would be one of those classical faces that would be what the sculptures at all ancient Indian monuments would have celebrated in their statuettes. Further she’s from the famed family of classical dancers from the Royal kingdom of Thiruvanthapuram – her aunts being Padmini, Ragini etc. who were famous heroines from the South in the days of yore. Sobhana keeps the tradition alive, having a dance school in Chennai.
So as she dances in Krishnaa, it’s a treat to watch – she’s in a body suit and her costumes keep changing as per the different roles of Krishna, while only the turban remains intact, as well as the make up on her face. And watching this up close its really hard to take your eyes of her, and watch one of the foremost experts in Abhinaya and Nritya sometime step into classical Bharata natyam, and sometimes do folk, and then acting of course.
But the sheer effort in this stage musical is unmatchable,
and makes the evening worthwhile.
The troupe is a carefully selected bunch of students, each
of them assigned distinct costumes to help identify who’s who. So all the girls
play different roles including ones of Bheema, the pandavas etc. The costumes are exquisitely designed, on par
with modern interpretations of what ancient Indian temple as well historical
costumes, jewellery and hairstyles must have been like. And with each performer an expert dancer from
the school, it is like being part of and a witness to Indra’s gana sabha (the king of the Gods was
famous for having the most beautiful apsaras dance in his court).
The effort doesn’t stop there. As evident from the
advertisements, the performing contributors include famous names like Konkona
Sen Sharma, Shabana Azmi, Prabhu Deva, Suriya, Prabhu, Milind Soman etc who
contribute their voices and choreographic talents to the show.
And this makes it somewhat amusing. Now if you are not from the south – and not
familiar with the classical mythological theatre you cannot get the OTT nature
of the performances. A lot of film
artistes from the Tamil and Telugu industry were stage artistes, and adapted
the style of the theatre stage where a lot of exaggerated expressions and loud
mannerisms had to be employed to convey the drama from the scenes to the
audience.
Sobhana remains true to this style and idiom in this
musical. Thus everything is dramatic,
melodramatic, loud and OTT – and all the contributing artistes faithfully and
enthusiastically adhere to this. So Shabana Azmi and Konkona Sen Sharma who are
otherwise farthest from this style, give pitch perfect renditions of dialogues
in this dramatic style for their roles (Gandhari and Draupadi respectively).
It doesn’t look like any of them charged any money for this – or, rather even if they did,
it’s quite remarkable that Sobhana managed to get such a fantastic ensemble to
take part in this venture.
The contributions don’t stop there. Sobhana uses excerpts from popular songs from
famed music houses who are otherwise renowned for being picky and lawfully
protective of their franchises, but they seem to have agreed to allow her usage
for this venture as she acknowledges their copyrights. So there are songs from
Yashraj’s dhoom, Aamir Khan’s Lagaan, and a lot of songs from A R Rahman in
tamil.
There is a lot of research that has gone into the production,
and there is a slide show in between where the evidence proving the existence
of Mahabharata’s events and landmarks is produced (the eclipse, Kurukshetra
etc.) but like the rest of the show it runs at jet speed.
The show I watched was haphazard, chaotic and took as much
effort from the audience to understand, as it must have for the dancers. The show began around 30 minutes late, The
break which was supposed to be around 10-15 minutes, instead was wrapped in 5
minutes (thus the CDs which were on sale personally autographed by her were
missed). Both the audience as well as the troupe seemed to be in a hurry to
complete the show and get out of the auditorium. The songs might have been
curtailed (we wouldn’t know anyway, and it looked like few cared, and would be
grateful for the shortening). However, the ending was spectacular with the troupes
bringing in those cardboard elephants and bring alive on stage, the scene of
the warfield. And lastly is the arangetram (or whatever the term is for paying
respect to the dance floor as you begin and end your dance performance).
As I was moving out from the side entrance, one of the young
girls is running outside still in her costume asking the trucks to come in and
collect the props and other material from the stage – she speaking in
impeccable English to the bhaiyyas in Mumbai and that’s quite something. It
looked like most of them would be trucking all the way back to their hotel in
their costumes, and having their dinner while sitting, standing on the truck.
(and that would have been one hell of a sight for those on the road
accompanying them on the road)
And then as I stepped out, it was raining in Mumbai - almost
miraculously. It has been a fairly dry winter
and when I walked into the show earlier that evening, there was no sign
of clouds, so it was really one of those magical moments.
So once again – why, really is this making it to my faves?
I seriously don’t think there was any money to be made into
this show, if at all – this runs only thanks to the sponsors. Nobody’s getting paid any great money for all
the amount of physical effort that goes into this (like all theatre actors and
stagehands know).
The only thing going here is the enthusiasm and energy from
Sobhana which infuses the air in the theatre and every molecule of every body
who is in the theatre – some come alive, while others suffer fatigue and simply
give up.
But I could only applaud, this took me a long time to
absorb, and then relate to what I knew about the Mahabharata and Lord Krishna,
and I had to simply admit that even for trying… it deserves a standing
applause!
It truly was about collapsing and condensing the infinite
into a power-packed 2 hour show – and Bravo to that!
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